


breathe the shadows, whisper the skin

by norgbelulah



Category: Justified
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Captivity, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Rape/Non-con Elements, Season/Series 04 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 08:41:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 38,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norgbelulah/pseuds/norgbelulah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a society breaking down, U.S. Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens receives a mysterious package that puts him into an impossibly dangerous position.  Once a close friend, then a bitter enemy, Boyd Crowder becomes Raylan's only lifeline and comfort in the face of terrible abuse and captivity.  Together, along with Ava, a prisoner as well, they must find a way to survive in their brutal new reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In addition to the tags, I would like to add an additional warning. While writing this, me and my lovely betas, thornfield girl and scioscribe, called it the "dark fic." Whether that is an attraction or a deterrent is up to the reader.

"Looks like things have died down in LA," Tim said as Raylan came into the office. 

"Yeah, I heard on the radio." It was sort of a requirement of the job to keep up with the news these days. Raylan remembered maybe ten years back he could have given two shits what happened day to day on the other side of the country. Now, the things you heard could put you on alert for a riot down the street or on the other side of the city, for a new tactic or a new weapon someone was going to point at you.

The office was quiet for a change, though they both knew it wouldn't last. 

Tim was writing up a report, probably the shot he'd taken yesterday from a rooftop. Things these days, he said, reminded him sometimes of driving out of base and into Kobel. 

The UK campus in Lexington, and others in tiny college towns around the area, had been that way going on awhile, first with the student riots and then later the kids who couldn't keep going after the government stopped handing out loans to just anybody. Disillusioned kids with no education--or half of one anyway--kids who didn't want to join the military because the government would fuck shit up even more--roaming around neighborhoods that had already been running down, slowly forming into gang after gang accompanied by turf war after turf war and death after death.

Every city was a war zone now, every man, woman, child, a likely casualty.

There was a box on Raylan's desk. "What's this?" he asked, glancing at Tim and setting his hat down.

"Came in the mail. I dunno," Tim answered. He'd been distracted when the guy came in that morning, with the paperwork. "You gonna get your part on that thing in Liberty yesterday done this morning? Art wants is ASAP."

"I had a CI meeting," Raylan said, defensively. Tim was always on him for that shit. "I'll get to it."

"It's just--there's something up with the hostage. She's saying she doesn't remember what happened at all. You talked to her after, didn't you?"

Raylan shrugged as he reached for the box. It was addressed to him. There was all the appropriate postage stamped on it. The sticker for the scan all mail went through these days too. "I thought maybe she was a little bit shocky. She didn't really answer any of my questions--mostly repeated things I told her. Her eyes were a little glazed--you think someone fucked with her head?"

"Doctors couldn't find anything conclusive. I'm worried--you ever heard of that Colombian plant? Makes people into zombies or something? I heard it’s coming across the border. Even up into Detroit."

Raylan frowned as he opened the box. There wasn't anything inside. It was just a bunch of paper, all crumpled up, chalky white in color. As he handled it more, taking out piece after piece, he realized the chalk wasn't just the color, it was on the paper and as the paper unfolded and crinkled between his fingers, he could smell it--or could feel himself breathe in the odorless dust.

"Oh, shit," he heard himself say and everything seems to grow very distant.

Tim says his name, but then his phone rings, and he's looking at the bottom of the box--there's a note with letters. He frowns at it, peers closely. It says, _answer your damn phone_.

He does.

"Say hello like you know who it is," a rough voice says over the line.

“Hey,” Raylan says, his lips stretching to an automatic smile. “What’s going on?”

“Do you have your gun?”

Raylan does and he says so.

“Tell me you’ll be right there, pick up that stupid hat, and start walking out the door.”

When Tim calls after him, Raylan hesitates, turning around. “I’ll be right right back,” he says. “Don’t worry.” He says it because the man on the line tells him to.

He walks out the door of the courthouse for the same reason. There’s a black van parked off on a side street. Raylan doesn’t think about it, doesn’t wonder that he should as he climbs in the passenger side of the van.

The man in the van--he’s a kid really--looks familiar, but Raylan, finding it difficult to continue trying to place him, just smiles as he hangs up the phone.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” the kid asks.

Raylan shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

“Whatever.” He hands Raylan a bottle of water. “Drink all of that or you won’t be able to walk no more. I’m gonna tell you some stuff and you’re gonna listen to what I tell you to do.”

This sounds all right. Raylan can’t think of a reason it wouldn’t. 

The kid starts the van and as they roll away, he says, “We’re on a mission, Givens. You work for the Crowders now.”

 

They don’t talk much after the kid lays out the mission. Raylan feels good, though he blinks a lot like he’s tired, his mouth is dry even after all that water and sometimes things crawl across the corners of his vision, dark oozing things, that seem out of place--but only fleetingly.

“Are you seeing shit?” the kid asks. “You look jumpy.”

“There’s spiders on the floor,” Raylan observes. He watches one crawl up his leg.

“Pay it no mind. We’re on a mission, Marshal. Focus on the mission.”

Raylan thinks about shooting a man in the head.

 

They let him into Little Sandy, no problem.

The kid put a bluetooth phone in his ear and he’s telling him things and Raylan feels really good about it. Everything is easy, everything is right.

He tells them he wants to see Farina. They ask him why. He tells them it’s related to a case. He smiles and slips a hundred dollars under the sign in sheet. No problem.

As he’s walking down the hall to the meeting room he hears footsteps behind him. They sound like Tim’s. He asks him if he’s here for the mission. There’s a beat of silence and the bluetooth says, “Sure, Raylan. Just like you. Don’t fuck it up.”

There’s a guard outside the room. Tim tells him to ask, “Everything good?” He hands the guard five hundred.

“Of course,” the guard says and Raylan goes in the room.

Farina is a big man. He looks confused to be there. “Heard about you,” he says to Raylan. “But I don’t think I know anybody who knows you. What case you wanna know about?”

Raylan smiles. Tim says pull. No problem.


	2. Chapter 2

Boyd Crowder woke with a splitting headache. He did that a lot these days, mostly, like now, because Jimmy was kicking him.

“Johnny wants to talk to you,” Jimmy said with that pouty look on his face like he wished Boyd was still telling him what to do, as though it wasn’t Jimmy who handed him the Devil’s Breath the first time, with Duffy minutes away and Johnny waiting in the back room, just ready.

“Fuck you,” Boyd grumbled and got another kick for his trouble. His whole body hurt.

“Get up, bitch,” Jimmy said. “Johnny got you a present.”

Boyd told himself he only did because he wondered just what the fuck that meant.

He didn’t look at Ava when he walked out of the back and into the bar. He felt dizzy and his head ached something fierce. He felt the eyes of everyone in the place on him and he wondered what Johnny had told him to do this last time.

He stopped when he saw Raylan.

“Well, look at what we got here,” Johnny was saying sitting at a table in the middle of the bar like he was holding court, like Boyd had done. 

Raylan, who was sitting at the table opposite Johnny, turned back to him when he spoke, then looked again at Boyd. Boyd said nothing, but wondered that he hadn’t spoken yet.

“You ain’t gonna say hello to your present, cousin?”

Raylan didn’t blink, didn’t react at all. Boyd suddenly realized, this was what it looked like, what it was--the Devil’s Breath. Raylan’s movements were just a little slow, his smile almost inappropriate for the situation. His eyes darted around the room, looking for something. When Johnny spoke, “Stand up, Raylan. Say hello to Boyd,” Boyd realized it was direction.

Raylan obeyed in a second.

His smile seemed genuine, his hand stretched out confidently. “Boyd,” he said, with even the tired drawl that so often came into his voice when Raylan was talking to Boyd in recent years. “Hey.”

Boyd finally chanced a glance at Ava. Her eyes were wide, her back rigid, taut with strain of some kind. He’d lost the ability to read her. She’d grown so brittle inside. He’d lost the power to save her. She looked down at her hands when their eyes met. He had no idea what he looked like.

He’d never seen the Breath on anyone before. 

He had found out later, after everything went down, that Johnny had got it from Duffy who had taken umbrage with a minor play that Boyd had risked outside of his boundaries. The play had worked out, but put another of Duffy’s associates--whom Boyd had been unaware of through a graceless lack of research--into a bad position. 

Johnny, who’d been moved to another of Duffy’s ventures, though Boyd had assumed he’d skipped town rather quickly and skillfully, took it upon himself to impress upon Duffy that Boyd was a loose canon. Johnny could be trusted so much more, Johnny would follow the rules.

Duffy was under Tonin, who had friends in Colombia, who sent him something special. 

A particular dose of a particular powder in Boyd’s drink, handed off by Jimmy himself, and Boyd lost forty-eight hours of his life, his half-gathered empire, and all traces of his power in Harlan.

He couldn’t remember anything that happened, but no one ever looked at him the same.

He’d woken, bloodied, beaten, violated, with a debilitating headache and Wynn Duffy standing over him.

“You stay here and you live. You go anywhere and Johnny finds you, maybe you live. I find you you’re dead. Tonin finds you, you’re destroyed. Do you understand?”

He slurred a yes and they poured a drink down his throat and he lost another day.

No one would look him in the eye for quite a long time after that.

Raylan was looking him in the eye right now. “Hello, Raylan,” Boyd said quietly and took his hand. “What are you doing here?”

Raylan blinked. “Saying hello.” He turned when Johnny laughed.

Johnny was such an asshole these days.

Raylan was smiling as Johnny said, “Raylan did me a big favor today. Some people probably ain’t gonna be too pleased with him for it, so he’s gonna stick with us for a while. Ain’t that right?”

“Sure,” Raylan said, easy.

“Unless Boyd has some objection?” Johnny looked at him.

Boyd frowned. When he challenged, there was always more blood later and it would take him so long to feel better. But he didn’t understand. “What did you make him do?”

Johnny glanced at Jimmy, who was smoking in the corner. “Duffy called a hit on somebody at Little Sandy. Our only inside guy there is a guard. Couldn’t lose him, so we hitched the Marshal. Sent him a package with your medicine all over it.”

Boyd shook his head. 

“You don’t want him here?”

“No, I--”

Johnny sneered. “Raylan, take out your weapon.”

Raylan did, very calmly, very deliberately. His smile was lingering, with the gun in his hand it made him look crazed.

Johnny said, “Barrel to chin.” Raylan turned the gun on himself, automatically. He pressed hard.

Boyd took in a sharp breath. No one else there seemed surprised. He felt his breath growing ragged, heart pumping much too fast.

This was the Devil’s Breath. This was hell, Raylan’s hell and he couldn’t remember his own.

“Do you want him in the back with you or splattered across my floor?” Johnny’s fucking floor again. Johnny was always talking about what was his now. His floor, his bar, his woman. Boyd swallowed his anger.

“No,” he said. “ I want him.”

Johnny smirked. “That’s what I thought.” He flicked his eyes over to where Raylan was still standing, gun to his neck. “Take care of him then.”

Boyd blinked and licked his lips unsteadily. He wasn’t sure what Johnny meant.

“Tell him to do something, Boyd,” Johnny said, smiling like he was being some kind of idiot. “And don’t get any stupid ideas. He’s used to listening to me now. If you tell him to shoot somebody and if you think you’re gonna be able to get out with him, you’re fooling yourself. Someone’s gonna find you and then you’ll both be dead.” Johnny sat back in his chair. “You’ll have finally killed Raylan Givens. Though I’m not sure that was ever what you wanted.”

Boyd was sure it said something terrible about his current state of mind that he hadn’t even thought to do what Johnny was proposing would kill him. He looked at Raylan, who was still as a statue, his eyes glazed over, staring at nothing.

“Raylan,” he said quietly. It seemed like such a long time since he’d given an order. “Holster your weapon.”

When Raylan did, Johnny nodded sagely, like Boyd had made a commendable move. He said, “Good idea, cuz. But, just so you know, you can have a lot more fun with this than you’re thinking. People on this shit,” he looked right into Boyd’s eyes as he spoke, “they’ll do absolutely _anything_.”

Boyd’s hands began to shake as Johnny continued, “Raylan, go kneel at Boyd’s feet.” Boyd looked up to see Ava was crying from behind the bar, her hands white-knuckled at the wood. When Raylan moved into position, his expression loose and comfortable, Boyd looked into his eyes and saw they were dilated wide, so wide they were almost completely black. “Raylan,” Johnny asked very deliberately, “would you suck Boyd’s cock right now?”

Raylan blinked, frowned slightly. It wasn’t a direction. Then he smiled and replied, “Sure. Yeah.”

“You ever sucked cock before?”

Raylan shook his head. “No, man.” He looked into Boyd’s face and smiled wider, reassuring. “It’s good, though. I want to.” He sincerely looked as though he did. His mouth was wet, hung slightly open, like he was waiting for it. 

He reached for Boyd’s belt, but Boyd caught his wrist, stopping him. “Wait,” he told Raylan. Johnny was laughing as Boyd spat, “Fuck off, asshole. I get it.”

Johnny’s laughter ceased abruptly and he rose from his seat. “Now, now, cousin. No need to get pissy. I’m not sure that you do. Not completely.” He crossed his arms and said, “Raylan, Boyd has just been extremely disrespectful. Punish him.”

It took several seconds of blinding pain in his genitals before Boyd realized that Raylan had savagely seized them and pulled him to the ground. Now he was on his knees, moaning uncontrollably, and Raylan had his head pulled back by his hair and was standing over him and still smiling.

“Ask him if he understands, Raylan,” Boyd heard Johnny say.

Raylan bent slightly, and looked Boyd in the eye as he regurgitated Johnny’s question.

Boyd ground out a yes and, when Johnny told him to, Raylan released him.

“Now,” Johnny said as Jimmy came over and handed him a cell phone. “I gotta make a call. Get him out of here, Boyd, make sure he don’t die before he comes out of it, and keep him under control when he does. I haven’t decided which one of you gets the next dose.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Boyd couldn’t stop himself from hissing. He looked up at Raylan, who was watching Johnny’s back as he walked away and said, “Help me up, Raylan.”

Everything really hurt now, but Boyd was determined to keep his feet and his expression steady, at least with Raylan’s help. Raylan was surprisingly solid, for being on a hallucinogenic drug of whatever kind the Breath was. He held onto Boyd by his arms and he was smiling at him funny enough that Boyd said, “You really don’t have to blow me, Raylan.”

Raylan blinked at him, Boyd was beginning to see it as a cue for something, what he wasn’t quite sure yet, and he said, “Oh,” then paused and asked, as though it hadn’t come up at all before, “but did you want me to?”

Boyd was still staring, startled, at Raylan when Ava spoke. He didn’t realize she hadn’t left with Johnny. “It’s not just he won’t remember after, Boyd. It’s not like the memories get erased. It’s more like they never get formed at all. You have to-to keep telling him, or he’ll forget. Or if you tell him one thing, then another, it’s just the second thing he’ll do, or think, or say.”

Boyd turned to stare at her now. Her expression was pained, so much he could barely stand it. “I’m so sorry, Ava,” he told her, voice not strong enough to break a whisper. 

“He took the money you saved for the bribe,” Ava said, tears pouring down her face. “He only got it because you gave it to him. He searched and searched. Jimmy told me. Boyd, I--”

“Don’t,” he tried, shaking his head.

But she kept speaking. “I don’t know what to do now. Please--”

“There isn’t anything we can do,” he heard himself say. Boyd didn’t want to give any more commands. He didn’t know what to tell her. 

Ava looked as though she wanted to speak, but had lost the power, or the words. “Boyd--”

“Raylan,” he said. “Say hello to Ava.”

Raylan stepped forward and gave her a kiss on the cheek. His lips must have tasted tears, but he didn’t react to them. He smiled and patted her arm. “Hey, Ava.”

She sniffed, and forced a smile of her own. “Hey, Raylan,” her voice held a tone like she was talking to a child. “Everything’s fine, okay? You’re feeling really good, right?”

Raylan’s smile widened and, as Boyd was standing quite close, he felt Raylan’s stance ease, his muscles relax. Ava looked at Boyd and said, “You can’t remember the things I done for you, baby.”

Boyd was still searching for something to say when Johnny called for her and she went.

Boyd led Raylan through the back of the bar. Though he’d slept, for reasons he was unable to recall, in the back room, he spent most of his time in the storage shed at the way back of the property. Out of sight, out of mind, he’d always supposed.

He directed Raylan, who of course immediately obeyed, to sit on the mattress on the floor they’d given him for sleeping. He doubted they’d be getting another one. He slid down the wall across the small space, surrounded by cases of liquor and beer, with Raylan watching him carefully.

He almost asked if Raylan had a question, then stopped himself because that made no sense. If the Devil’s Breath took all free will, Raylan would have no thoughts for questions, or for any action that wasn’t handed to him in an order.

Raylan held himself stiffly and his eyes darted once in a while to the corner of the room.

“What are you looking at over there?” Boyd asked him, after he spent several moments staring at the corner by the door.

“There’s a spider,” Raylan replied calmly. “Body ‘bout the size of a rat. Web’s all around us, Boyd.”

“Christ Almighty,” Boyd breathed. He didn’t want to know that. These were things he must have also seen.

Raylan’s eyes followed something, must have been crawling across the ceiling, until Boyd collected himself and told him. “Raylan, don’t look at it. Look at me.” Raylan met his eyes. Boyd would do for Raylan what Ava had done for him. He smiled and said, “There ain’t nothing there, Raylan. Everything’s fine, okay? Just relax now. Lie down.”

Raylan obeyed him, his ever-present smile wider and seemingly more real.

“Loosen your tie,” Boyd said, looking him over. “No, just take it off. That’s right.” With the praise, Raylan’s smile spread again, though fleetingly, and Boyd kept up with that. “You did so well today, Raylan. Everything is...really, really good. You’re--you’re safe, all right?”

Raylan sighed and his eyes were blinking a whole lot slower now.

“You keep your jacket on, though,” Boyd continued, hardly thinking now about what he said. “You won’t remember, but, it’s gonna get cold tonight. You need a coat. And y-you’re...gonna wake up with a headache. Worst headache you ever had and it’s not gonna go away for days, unless--unless Johnny gives you more of that shit--Oh, God.” Boyd pulled his knees up to his chest and pressed his face into his arms.

When he looked up, Raylan was sitting up again and frowning at him.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Boyd said.

“Do you want me to fix your head?” Raylan asked. Then he blinked and looked away and said, “Tiny spiders and creeping black goo in the shadows.” His brows were deeply furrowed and he was starting to look flushed. “My head hurts too.”

“Already?” Boyd pushed off from the wall and approached him, sitting slightly off the cot and pressing his hand to Raylan’s forehead. Raylan unconsciously leaned into him as Boyd felt the heat radiating from his skin. “No one said anything about a fever.”

Raylan didn’t speak, but his eyes held pain and confusion and Boyd hated himself. He started speaking again, “Everything’s fine, Raylan. I want you to think about that. Your head don’t hurt. Nothing in the whole fucking world is wrong right now. There ain’t no spiders, ain’t no darkness. Everything is soft and bright and beautiful. You’re feeling really good, aren’t you?”

Raylan blinked a few times, and smiled and nodded. Boyd touched his face, feeling strangely tender. He remembered a day, so long ago, when Raylan needed something like this and Boyd had given it to him.

“Can you remember a long time ago, Raylan?” he asked softly.

“When?” Raylan hadn’t looked away from his eyes the whole time he’d been speaking.

“When Myrtle Creek went and we just made it out and I took you up the mountainside.”

Raylan nodded. “Yeah.”

“And we shared that shine and you fell asleep, drunk, in my truck,” Boyd said. “That’s where we are, Raylan. We ain’t no where else and nothing else ever happened to you or me.” Not the near-collapse of the government, not the riots in the cities, not the disaffection, not the corruption, not the fucking Colombian drug surge. He said, “Not the Marshals or the Army or the Commandoes or the women. It’s just you and me and we nearly died and I’ve never loved anybody so much as I love you right now.”

Raylan smiled, real big. It was his drunk smile, his I’ve forgotten everything but you smile. It was the smile he gave Boyd that night. He clung to Boyd’s shoulders and he said, “Okay, Boyd.”

“You think you can fall asleep?”

“Yeah,” he answered, lying down as Boyd gently guided him. “Yeah, Boyd.”

“Do it then.”

Boyd didn’t sleep that night.


	3. Chapter 3

Raylan didn’t want to wake up because his head was aching. 

It hurt so much, he only opened his eyes a crack, before the light felt like a knife in his skull. He groaned. He rolled over and his whole body hurt.

“Jesus,” he moaned. 

Something smelled terrible--stank of urine and shit and unwashed bodies. “Fuck.” It was cold. He wondered that Billy hadn’t turned up the heat. He searched for his blanket. 

He only forced his eyes open finally because he couldn’t find it.

He came face to face with Boyd Crowder. He didn’t say anything right away because he thought he might be dreaming.

Blinking hard, eyes watering, Raylan discovered that Boyd looked terrible. Like, really, incredibly awful. 

His eyes were sunken, his face thinner than ever. He was bundled in his old coat, but it was dirty and ripped in places and his hair was cropped short, but uneven, like no one had taken care with it. There was a scar on the left side of his face, from his temple to his jaw that hadn’t healed completely and he was looking at Raylan like he was the one who had a problem.

“I need you to say something, Raylan,” Boyd said carefully, his voice very soft. Almost tentative.

“What. The. Fuck. Boyd?” is what he decided to say. 

“Oh good,” he replied. “I was,” he hesitated. “I was worried.”

Raylan looked around the room, brow furrowed in pain and concentration. His vision was somewhat fuzzy. There were stacks of liquor and beer cases around them. Boxes of jars of peanuts and mixers and shit too. “Are we in your store room?”

Boyd smiled ironically. “Ain’t mine,” he said, voice still too soft, as though he were afraid to speak louder. He tilted his head at Raylan. “What’s the last thing you remember, Raylan?”

Raylan rubbed his head. “Th-there was a package. On my desk. Tim was talking to me about a case.” He huffed, frustrated. “What the fuck?”

Boyd was laughing, high and desperate and Raylan stared at him. 

“Jesus, what?”

“A package,” Boyd answered, wiping at his eyes with dirty fingers. He looked as though he hadn’t bathed in a while. “That’s far too elegant for Johnny.”

“Johnny. Your cousin Johnny?”

“Things have changed a bit since you last rolled into Harlan, Marshal,” Boyd drawled, but it sounded hollow, almost pathetic and Raylan sensed a creeping disturbance in his mind. Something was terribly wrong here, wrong with him, wrong with Boyd, everything.

“Have you ever heard of the Colombian plant, Borrachero it’s called. It’s a tree with pretty flowers. They tell their children not to fall asleep underneath its branches. They pound the seeds and they make it into a powder and if you eat it, or breathe it in--”

“No,” Raylan said, and closed his eyes, clutching at his head. 

He couldn’t listen anymore. He’d heard this before. In Albuquerque last year, in Houston and Dallas three months ago. In Shreveport, weeks later, three police officers, city police, had raided the home of an innocent man, seized his property, and blown. One was found roaming in the woods, naked and muttering. The other bodies were found days later, the stolen items, cash and jewelry, electronics, were never recovered. “Shut up,” he told Boyd, whose expression had lost all humor. 

“They gave it to you, Raylan,” Boyd said very slowly, “and you left with Jimmy and you shot a man in cold blood yesterday.”

Raylan shook his head. “No,” he said. “That's not possible.” But he had heard those stories. He had...he thought he had opened a package.

Boyd almost smiled, like Raylan was being cute. “How many bullets are in your gun?”

Raylan felt his eyes bulge. He checked it. One was missing. “Shit,” he muttered. But he was still shaking his head. “Shit, Boyd, no, that's not--”

Someone opened the door of the shack. They both turned, startled. It was Jimmy. Raylan had barely recognized him, but he knew he was the boy Boyd was talking about. Jimmy glanced at Raylan but his eyes came to rest on Boyd. 

“He wants you.”

Boyd’s smile grew, like something was really funny now. He stood, though Jimmy hadn’t come over to get him, and walked forward himself. “You're about to find out that it very much is possible, Raylan. I’m so sorry.” Jimmy took his arm and pulled him forward. “Raylan, I am so so sorry.”

Jimmy turned over his shoulder to look back at Raylan. “Can you walk?” he asked.

Raylan shrugged. His head hurt so much, he wasn’t really sure.

“You best follow, if you can. He’s gonna want you there.”

Raylan scowled, wondering what the fuck happened that everybody cared so much about what Johnny Crowder wanted.

He rose slowly, and was dizzy for a moment, leaning hard against the wall of the shed. “Shit,” he groaned, clutching his head.

He heard Boyd on the other side of the door say, “Wait, no, Jimmy, you can trust me to walk. Help Raylan. You’ve seen how bad it can be.”

Jimmy opened the door fast and Raylan squinted again, because everything seemed much too bright. Boyd stood calmly next to him, waiting. Raylan didn’t understand. He looked at Boyd. “Why don’t you run?”

Raylan felt a strange sinking feeling in his stomach as Boyd replied, his eyes dull, “There’s nowhere to go I can’t be found, Raylan. I knew that when I got into bed with Tonin.”

Jimmy pulled Raylan, as he stumbled along, legs weak and uncoordinated, and Boyd walked straight-backed, eyes ahead, into the bar.

There was a weird amount of people there, inside the main room. Ava was there, standing behind it, serving drinks it looked like. He hadn't heard she was out of prison, though he assumed Boyd had been working on a bribe to pull her out. It wasn’t unheard of, though it did come at a high price. There had been so much shit going down in the cities and in the college towns, Raylan hadn’t been to Harlan in months. He’d given up on selling his father’s house.

Raylan had thought it was early in the afternoon, by the look of the daylight. He supposed so many people were in the bar because so many were out of work. The mines had downsized, no one had money these days. Anyone here would jump at the chance to be a runner for the Crowders--for Johnny, Raylan guessed, now. 

He also supposed Johnny had a much larger beef with his cousin than Raylan had realized, because he was clearly stoked for what was about to happen. He had a big smile on his face and his eyes were roaming across the crowd, from face to face, excited so many eyes were on him and whatever the hell he had planned.

And Raylan had always thought Boyd was the showman.

Johnny stepped away from the bar, turned to kiss Ava--who looked as though she was about to be sick all over the bar top--on the cheek, and let his eyes rest on Raylan. “Good to see you again, Marshal,” he said smiling, triumphant. “We spoke a little last night, but I don’t think you remember.”

Raylan sort of bared his teeth at Johnny. “Fuck you,” he said. Then followed it up with, “What the hell, Johnny?”

Johnny’s brows rose. “Oh, did Boyd tell you about what happened?” He looked at his cousin. “Or did he pull some punches?”

Raylan’s head was pounding. He wasn’t in the mood for mind games. “I don’t remember you being quite this needlessly sadistic last we spoke, Johnny. I don’t know what got your panties in such a fucking twist, but will you just get this shit over with so everyone can go home.”

Johnny laughed at him. “Go home? We are home, Raylan. Boyd’s home. He’s not going anywhere. If he does Wynn Duffy or Sammy Tonin’s gonna take his eyes and his tongue ‘fore they take his life. Ava’s home. I brought her here. Bought her out of hell too, if you were wondering. _You_ are home too, case you didn’t get it yet.” He stepped forward. He was holding something tightly in his hand, encompassed by his palm. Boyd was eyeing it like it was a snake or a loaded gun.

Johnny paused and looked between them. He said, “You know, Raylan, he’s protecting you. Usually, I get a lot more of a fight.” He turned to Boyd. “You don’t want to scare him, do you? You don’t want to fight because a fight means more blood, more pain. Well, too bad asshole. No matter what you do, the Marshal’s going to find out what he’s in for.”

“Johnny,” Boyd began, earnestly, so quietly.

Johnny grinned. “Are you really going to beg?”

He messed it up for himself because Boyd’s mouth snapped shut and his eyes widened like he couldn’t quite believe it either.

Johnny raised his hand. Boyd looked like he wanted to run away. “You’re home now, Raylan,” he said, opened his palm, and blew a fine white powder into Boyd’s face. Boyd couldn’t help but breathe it in. He stumbled back and took a heaving breath, rubbing at his face and blinking profusely. Johnny continued, watching his cousin carefully, “Because, I sent that white powder to you in a box and you breathed it in, just like he did, and then you shot a man named John Farina inside Little Sandy in the full view of surveillance cameras because my man fucking told you to.”

Boyd was sitting now, almost crumpled on the floor, but he looked up, searching the room, eyes wide and expression slackening somehow, losing definition, until he found Raylan. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, very slowly and slurring, like he was forcing the words out of his mouth. “Raylan, I’m sorry.”

“Boyd,” Johnny said. “Shut up.”

Boyd’s eyes snapped to Johnny and he did and he was very still and Johnny grinned at him.

“Stay on the floor. You know that’s where I like you best, don’t you?”

Something in Raylan’s chest seized as Boyd smiled and replied, “Yeah. Yeah, Johnny.”

Everyone in the bar was silent.

“Boyd, what did you tell Raylan about what happened to him?” Johnny asked.

Boyd smiled. He replied readily, in an almost dreamy tone, with surprising detail. “I told him about Borrachero, the Devil’s Breath. But he knew. I could see he knew in his face. I told him it’s from Colombia and I laughed because he said he got a package. He didn’t want to believe me when I told him he shot that man, so I told him to check his gun. When Jimmy came, I told him he was going to find out it was true.”

Johnny smiled and glanced over at Raylan. “All very accurate, right? You know they used to use this stuff as a truth serum in like the 50’s and 60’s.”

Raylan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and they gave it to women in labor before that, asshole. He told you I knew what it was.”

“You see though, maybe you do, Raylan. Maybe you do. But I’m not sure that you really get it, that you really _understand_ the possibilities of what you can do with a person who has lost their free will.” Johnny turned back to Boyd. “Stand up,” he said and Boyd did, settling into something like attention. 

Raylan wondered if it was an unconscious holdover from his Army days. Johnny certainly hadn’t told him to stand in any specific way. 

“Take off that fucking coat.”

Raylan heard a hiss from somewhere in the back of the small crowd gathered in the bar when Boyd removed his coat, letting it fall to the ground at his feet. 

He was wearing only a sleeveless beater, yellowed and stretched from wear with no washing, and there were lines, like the jagged red scar down his face, drawn with a knife all across his arms and shoulders and chest. They were in a swirling pattern, which was strangely intricate in some places, particularly around both wrists, where the tendrils seemed to congregate in some kind of thorny bangle or shackle.

Raylan couldn’t take his eyes off of Boyd, even when Johnny began speaking again. “I told my cousin here that there was a demon inside of him, in his belly, rising up. And that I needed him to do something to stop the demon from crawling inside his head and making him do terrible things. He believed me, Raylan,” Johnny laughed, incredulously, like it was ludicrous somehow. “And I gave him a knife, and he did that to himself. He told me that he chained the monster in and cut off his head, that lived in his heart.” There was a deeper cut, in the shape of an “X” across Boyd’s sternum. Raylan could see where the blood had stained through his shirt. There was a portion could be seen above the collar of his shirt: It looked angry red, infected. 

Raylan thought he might be sick.

“You do it right,” Johnny said. “And he’s, no _you’re_ not just a zombie, Raylan. You’re an active participant. Last night, I told you to punish Boyd for speaking out of turn. I didn’t tell you how. You grabbed him by the balls and threw him to the floor. This was minutes after you said you’d suck his cock if I asked. There is no time for someone on the Devil’s Breath. There’s the present and there’s what you’re supposed to do. And you’re supposed to do what absolutely anyone tells you to.”

Johnny stopped talking then, and Raylan supposed he was waiting for a rebuttal of some kind, an answer, a reply. Raylan still felt sick and his head was still pounding as he watched Boyd’s eyes dart to the corner of the room, lock on the neon light above the clock on the wall for a split second, then shift to something else.

“What is he looking at?”

Johnny shrugged. “Hallucinations. They get ignored if there’s a order to follow. He’s living in hell right now, Raylan. Be glad you can’t remember it.”

Raylan stared at Johnny. “What are you getting out of this? Jesus, Johnny. Even you have to admit it’s pretty sick.”

Johnny showed him some teeth, a feral grin. “Gave it to him the first time to get myself on top. Now, I just have fun with it. It only took him six months to get too big for his britches with Duffy and now he’s unemployable, wanted in various places, with a Detroit hit on him if he steps out of Harlan. He’s got nothing to do here. I certainly can’t give him any responsibility. I wouldn’t want to even if I could, Raylan, Jesus. He _betrayed_ me to Bo and he got me gutshot and left for dead. I spent a year in a fucking wheelchair and he took my goddamn birthright. I don’t care if it’s fucking sick, it’s the most entertaining and satisfying shit I’ve ever seen in my life. Sooner or later, he’ll overdose and my fun will be over and my problem will be gone, all right?”

“You’re a piece of work, Johnny Crowder,” Raylan said. 

Everyone in the bar turned their eyes to him. Some were fearful, some angry for some reason, dark and distrustful. It was dangerous for feds these days, but until recently Raylan had thought he was okay in Harlan. People remembered him.

“We’re a little worse for wear since last you saw us, Raylan,” Johnny said and some people in the bar nodded. “I suppose you heard Plackett shut down. A lot of people are out of work.”

“Well, I sure am glad to see you being so charitable, Johnny. Giving all these people free drinks since they ain’t got no jobs--” He broke off with a smile at the rumble in the crowd. There was no way Johnny was doing that.

“ _Federals_ ,” Johnny said, making his voice boom over the rising din, “ain’t welcome around here no more, Raylan. Even if you was some kind of favorite son.” Raylan was nothing of the kind. Johnny was just making shit up now. “Boyd,” he said and Boyd shifted, as if coming awake, when he’d been still so long. “Disarm the Marshal.”

Raylan pushed away from Jimmy, who’d still been standing near him, waiting for him to collapse, Raylan supposed. He braced his stance as Boyd approached with a quick stride, determination in his sunken, black eyes.

“I wouldn’t,” Johnny warned as Raylan smacked Boyd’s hand away when it reached to his holster. He had to step back, nearly stumbling as Boyd’s left hand came around in a vicious hook towards Raylan’s face. Raylan evaded the blow narrowly, unable to take his gaze from Boyd’s blank eyes and ferocious expression. Boyd’s hand closed around the grip and pulled the weapon free as Raylan fell to the ground at his feet.

“Shit,” he muttered. “Oh, fuck.” His head hurt so much and he felt a rising panic threatening to take him over. He realized Johnny only left the gun on him so he could be disarmed like that. This wasn’t anything but a lesson, like Boyd had said before he apologized all those times, and it was far from over.

“Pull him over here,” Johnny said. “So everyone can see.”

Raylan didn’t fight when Boyd’s hand closed around his collar. He even helped a little, unwilling to just be dragged across the floor.

“I know what you want, Boyd,” Johnny said. Raylan looked and saw that Ava had given him another double. “Ask me what you want.”

Boyd did. He was still leaning over Raylan, looking at him when the words left his mouth. “What do I want, Johnny?”

“You want Raylan.”

Raylan turned to Johnny, unable to hide his disturbance. 

Johnny smiled cruelly at him and continued, “You’re a horny fucker sometimes on this shit. I know. I know what you want, Boyd, and you want Raylan.”

Boyd eyes closed and his whole body shook for a moment, as if something was roiling inside him. His hand tightened on Raylan’s gun, where he’d let it hang at his side. He opened his eyes and gave Raylan a lascivious grin.

He bent down, of his own accord, though Raylan knew it really wasn’t, and leaned in between Raylan’s legs, where they were splayed as he laid on the floor.

Johnny’s voice came from above and he was being a fucking asshole about it. "Tell me that you used to fuck him, Boyd. I know that you did. I remember. You love this shit, don't you?" 

"We used to fuck. I love it," Boyd said. It sounded like the truth, even through the slow lilt in Boyd's voice, like the words were being pulled from him. He said "love" like he was capable of understanding what it meant in that moment. 

Raylan knew it was a lie. They never did.

He was breathing fast anyway. He could feel how hard Boyd’s cock was through his jeans.

Suddenly, Raylan needed to get away. He pushed back on Boyd, who instinctively held him down. He didn’t have the strength to push him off. His head was hurting so bad.

Johnny laughed and said, “That's right, hold him down. You don't want him to move, do you?

“No,” Boyd agreed. “Don't move, Raylan.”

“Or you'll shoot him, won't you?”

“Or I'll shoot you.” Boyd smiled, like he’d just said, “I love you.” He drew the gun up from where he’d braced it against the floor, and let the barrel slide across Raylan’s stomach and chest, and pressed it to his neck, at the pressure point. Raylan could feel his pulse pound against the cold metal.

Boyd slid the safety off without being told.

“You’re so hard now, you sick fuck,” Johnny said and Boyd groaned, squeezing his eyes shut. "He wants it too, Boyd. Help him get his pecker out."

Raylan heard himself make a strangled noise. He had to force words of protest back. He remembered what Johnny said, that struggle made it harder for Boyd, that Boyd didn't want to scare him. Well, he was plenty scared but he wasn't about to let Johnny hurt Boyd even more because of something Raylan had done.

Boyd made quick work of Raylan’s belt and fly, even one-handed. He had a single-minded determination that would have been commendable if it wasn't completely manufactured.

“Talk to him, Boyd,” Johnny said his voice more hushed now. And all Raylan could think was, _nonono, don’t do that_.

Boyd’s smile grew wide. He touched Raylan’s face and Raylan heard crying from somewhere in the crowd. “I’m so glad, Raylan,” Boyd murmured to him. He slid a hand up Raylan’s thigh. His thumb brushed Raylan’s balls, but he didn’t think it was on purpose. “Mm real happy you want me, Raylan, I--” he broke off, moaning. His hips bucked into Raylan’s leg, like he couldn't control it anymore.

“Christ, Johnny,” Raylan said, unable to hold back. “Just tell him to do it already.”

There was a crash from behind the bar, Raylan couldn’t see what had happened.

“Fuck,” Johnny ground out. “Boyd, take out your fucking dick and just come on him. Jesus.”

Raylan felt everything in him ease, just a little, even though it wasn’t over. He tried to turn his head away.

Boyd had other ideas. He did as Johnny said, fumbling helplessly with his own button and zipper, but then he grabbed at Raylan’s hair, with fingers wrapped around his gun, and made him look him in the eye as he did it. 

He mumbled, slurring almost incoherently, “Mm gonna come on you," and he breathed Raylan’s name and he slumped forward, face pressed in Raylan’s shoulder, after he came. 

There was come everywhere, sticky and warm, and Raylan felt sick, the smell of unwanted sex strong in his nose and mouth. But he held onto Boyd anyway as he gulped in breath after ragged breath and he sat them both up and pushed Boyd’s hair back a little, even though it was too short to really be in his eyes.

“You did so well,” Raylan murmured to him quietly, not even sure why, and Boyd gave him a slow, happy grin. He was still pressed very close. 

“Do you understand now, Raylan?” Johnny asked, something harsh and angry in his tone. “There’s no out for you here. You saw that missing bullet. I heard a BOLO’s out for you across the State. They get you, even if they believe we fucked with you, you’re still going inside for a piece of time. You won’t make it out of the general population alive.”

Raylan closed his eyes. Maybe ten years ago, when the possibility of being put in solitary, in special holding, was higher. Now the government didn’t have money to waste on that shit. The general air of government distrust had mutated into institutionalized hatred and violence. Hunter Mosely had lost an arm before they let him alone and he was only a county sheriff.

“You’re home now, Raylan, because I fucking own you, just like I own him.” Raylan kept his hand in Boyd’s hair. “Tell him, Boyd,” Johnny said, walking away.

He hadn’t said exactly what, but Boyd smiled again and touched Raylan’s face, tracing his fingers down Raylan’s jawline, and told him, “Welcome home, Raylan.”

It took a few minutes, but after Johnny walked out, the crowd hidden in the shadows, drinking their still full-priced booze, trickled out, leaving Raylan and Boyd crouched together in the middle of the bar with their pants still half-way down.

Jimmy, who left and came back, approached them cautiously and said, “Boyd, give me the Marshal’s gun.”

Boyd blinked like he was coming awake again, and leaned over Raylan to hand it to the boy with a smile. Raylan, still reeling from the knowledge that he really didn’t have an out, barely thought of trying to intercept it, or telling Boyd to shoot and run. His head ached so much, he tried to think of anything he could do that would work, that wouldn’t result from Boyd taking on even more abuse, just for his benefit.

Jimmy made a face as he looked down at them. Raylan made no move to cover up, to make it easier for him. He looked across the bar, then down at Raylan again. “We’re gonna get some food for you. Tell him to eat it.”

Raylan rolled his eyes. Like he wouldn’t have.

As Jimmy walked away, Raylan told Boyd to stand up and straighten himself out. He still looked vaguely euphoric, the high from coming, maybe taking longer to disperse. He smiled real big and tugged on Raylan’s hand to pull himself up. Raylan tried to force a smile back.

He heard noise from behind the bar and realized Ava was still standing there. “Jesus Christ,” he said.

She looked up at them and her dead eyes made Raylan wonder if she'd been given the same shit as he and Boyd. But then she met his gaze full on and said, "Johnny got me out of prison." She shook her head and he saw that her hands were shaking too. There was broken glass all over the floor and she couldn’t straighten the whole ones out without rattling them. “Raylan, I-I don’t have anywhere to go either.”

“But you’re going to stand back there and watch while this is happening to him? You’re gonna let Johnny fucking touch you when--”

He stopped because she let out a wracking sob and he thought she might double over. He ground his teeth together, working his jaw until he didn’t want to stride over there and strangle her until she shut up. She wasn’t the one who--he closed his eyes and tried not to think about what just happened.

“He said he’d give it to me. Only he knows where he keeps it, only--only he knows how to handle it. He said,” there was something hysterical in her eyes and her hands weren’t shaking anymore, but her knuckles were white at the bar top, “he said he loves me and he said he'll feed me that shit and he said he’d throw me back inside and, Raylan, I can’t go back there. I just can’t.”

Raylan should have been able to understand. Prison wasn't any place for anyone to be right now. He knew that--it was an intrinsic part of his own predicament. He thought, he shouldn’t be able to judge, if Ava needed whatever she had here with Johnny more than she needed to help Boyd. But he couldn’t, and he could tell she could see it in his face.

“I told him once he only loved you so he could give himself a reason to be an outlaw, to do whatever the fuck he wanted,” he said, in a low, controlled voice. She closed her eyes, tears streaming down her face. He wondered how much that happened to her these days. He wondered if she thought it was what she deserved, for killing a man, for fucking over Ellen May, for enabling Boyd to be what he was. “But, I only said it to wind him up. Because I knew he loved you more than I’d ever seen him love anybody. Even more than he loved me.”

Her breath caught, and Raylan didn’t know what he was expecting, but her shoulders only slumped and she heaved a sigh and said, “I’m going to try to get you some food. Your head might feel better after that.”

Raylan didn’t have anything to say and he thought spitting on her might be taking the argument too far.

She looked over at Boyd who was standing very close to Raylan. He had his hands rubbing on his arms and he was shivering slightly. The room was cold and Raylan knew the place was only going to get colder, as the night went on, and again as the autumn months bled into winter. He was going to need some more clothes. They both were.

“Boyd,” Ava said, and he turned to her, smiling softly. She returned it, like it was easy, and told him, “Put on your coat, baby.”

A flash of something fiercely hot rose up in Raylan, making him step forward and shove his finger in her face. "Don't tell him what to fucking do, Ava," he growled.

Her eyes widened as she stumbled back and away from them. She said, flatly, "He won't do anything unless you tell him."

"I fucking know. You don’t get to tell him. Not you."

A wave of hurt and sadness crested over her face and her expression crumpled in its wake. She slapped him across the face and cried, “Fuck you, Raylan. You ain’t been here. You don’t know what I’ve done for him.”

His face stung as he watched her retreat into the back room. His head was still aching, sharp, throbbing pains behind his eyes, deep in his skull, it felt like.

Boyd was looking at him intensely when he turned to make sure he was okay. “What’s wrong?” Raylan asked and when Boyd didn’t answer immediately, just blinked at him, like he didn’t understand, he said, “Tell me what you’re seeing, Boyd.”

Boyd reached out and touched his face. Not on the side like before, when he was wanting him so much, but down the center of his forehead, and off the tip of his nose, just with one, light finger. “There’s a ghost behind your eyes, Raylan,” he said. “I don’t know how I didn’t see it before.”

Raylan took a breath and said, “Come on.” He led them through the back room and out to the shed again, not knowing where else to go.

Ava was standing there waiting for them. There was a determined look in her eye as her gaze fell on Boyd, but when she spoke, she didn’t quite meet Raylan’s eyes.

"I should have just said right away, Raylan, I'm concerned about his health," she murmured, eyes down. "I hadn't seen him without that coat in weeks. I wasn't there when he cut himself open. I didn't know. I'm--I want to take him to my house. He needs to get clean and bandaged up.” She looked up now, as though asking permission. “You'll have to come too. Make sure he’s all right."

Raylan didn’t understand. Could they wait the night, until Boyd was in control of himself? "When's he going to come off it?" he asked.

Ava frowned and rubbed at her brow, shaking her head. "Days from now maybe. Your dose must not have been too strong. Last time for Boyd it lasted two and a half days and Johnny left him alone for a long time. H-he was raving in the night. Jimmy stays here sometimes and heard him. He called me and I came." She pushed her hair back behind her shoulders, revealing a yellowing bruise just under her ear. "Johnny gave me that for my trouble"

Raylan worked his jaw. Boyd was looking at something over Ava’s shoulder and he took a step back before, Raylan grasped at his arm, keeping him in place. “It’s all right, Boyd,” he said, though he didn’t take his eyes off Ava. “What about Johnny now?”

Jimmy came around the side of the building then and gave Ava a repentant look. “He’s calling after you.”

She made a face that was somewhere between tears and anger. “I thought he was busy tonight,” she spat. “Dammit.” She closed her eyes and drew a hand across her brow, fixing her hair, and straightening her spine. She huffed and settled herself then turned to Raylan. “Johnny doesn’t like it, I spend too much time with Boyd. I can’t imagine he’ll like it, he catches me with you both. This is stupid, Jimmy will take you.”

“Ava--” Raylan tried, but she shook her head and pushed a key into his palm.

“That’s the house key. We shut the electric off on account I’m almost never there, but the water heater’s on gas and the pipes should be okay. You just have to find some candles. Should be a few in the kitchen. Jimmy’s got a flashlight. He’ll stay and take you back. Johnny won’t like it if you sleep there.”

Raylan just nodded. He opened his mouth, searching for the words to apologize for before, but she was looking at Boyd. 

Her hands were in tight fists at her side, but he saw her consciously loosen them, and take another breath. She looked at him then and said, quietly, “You really want to help him. Why?”

Raylan hadn’t thought about it, it was just instinct taking over, battling with the fear rising inside him, over all the hopelessness he was starting to think might be on the horizon. “He was trying to protect me, Ava,” he said plainly. “And, he apologized. I can’t remember--” No, he realized he could. Boyd had apologized to him when Helen died. He hadn’t been able to tell if he was sincere, he’d been blinded by his anger, the knowledge that it was Boyd’s fault. “He hasn’t done that to me in a long time. Not really.”

“I seem to recall, you boys were never too good at it anyway,” she replied. Johnny’s voice came from the back room, calling for her. Jimmy looked a little antsy.

“Maybe,” Raylan said and reached out to squeeze her hand. “I’m sorry, Ava.”

She looked at him like she wanted to strangle him and kiss him at the same time. “Go to hell, Raylan,” she said tiredly, walking away. He was pretty sure she didn’t mean it.


	4. Chapter 4

The drive to Ava’s was silent and when they arrived, Jimmy said in a strange monotone, carefully not looking as Boyd’s eyes following something that must be crawling across the porch railing, “I’ll wait out here. You do what you gotta do, then we go back.”

Jimmy handed Raylan a flashlight and they went in.

Raylan told Boyd to stand in the entryway as he rummaged in the kitchen for the candles. The ones he found were the big kind in glass jars that smelled like something very particular.

When Raylan went back to get Boyd, his eyes were fixed on the darkness near the back door. Raylan thinned his lips and slid a hand over Boyd’s tense shoulder. “There’s nothing there, Boyd,” he told him softly. “You can’t see it, ‘cause there ain’t nothing there. Understand?”

Boyd nodded. His hand rose to clasp Raylan’s fingers on his shoulder. Raylan let out a breath he wasn’t expecting, squeezed Boyd’s shoulder and let his hand slip away between Boyd’s fingers.

“Come upstairs with me,” he said and Boyd came, his smile small now, his eyes so wide he looked lost. “I’ve got you,” Raylan murmured, for no reason. “We’re gonna get cleaned up.”

In the bathroom, Raylan started the water and lit the candles. They were cinnamon and vanilla, so the place was already starting to smell like a bakery or something. As he did, he asked Boyd, “Tell me about the last time you had a shower. Do you remember?”

Boyd’s expression came awake again, and he smiled wider at Raylan. “Yeah, sure. It was last time it rained. The thunder woke me and I was by myself. I took off all my clothes and I hung ‘em from the telephone line and I stood in the storm for a long time and everything washed off of me, Raylan.”

Raylan sighed, testing the heat of the water with his hand. The pipes were on, but the hot water was a long time coming. Boyd looked a little flushed. Raylan didn’t want him to have to endure a cold shower on top of another night in that shed. “When was the last time you took a shower like this one?”

“Morning Wynn Duffy was supposed to come and Jimmy handed me a cup of coffee the Devil breathed on,” Boyd answered softly. 

“Take your clothes off, Boyd,” Raylan said. The sound of the shower was drumming into his head, messing with the pulse-pound of his headache. It was dissonant and terrible. Raylan wished they’d had time to get food like Jimmy had mentioned. He was starving and dizzy, blinking away tiny lights across his vision every few minutes. No wonder Boyd was so thin.

Boyd’s shoulders jutted painfully from the flesh of his back and close up even the small lacerations all across his skin looked puffy and infected.

“Shit, Boyd,” Raylan muttered. “Johnny really is trying to kill you.” 

He laid a hand on Boyd’s shoulder, making him flinch and spin around. The eyes that met Raylan’s were hurt and afraid. The drug couldn’t mask things that went so deep.

“Did that hurt you?” Raylan asked him. “My hand on your shoulder. Did it hurt?”

Boyd nodded, unable to lie to protect Raylan now. “My skin’s always on fire, Raylan.” His gaze shifted to something in the corner.

“What’s there?”

“Red eyes in a dark face. They’re burning me, Raylan. My skin’s on fire.”

Raylan shook his head and put a palm against the side of Boyd’s face. He wanted that contact, felt like he needed it, but he couldn’t touch Boyd’s shoulders or arms. Boyd’s skin felt hot there too. “That’s not why you’re hurting, Boyd,” Raylan said. “There’ ain’t no eyes, no face, no demon inside you. You’re sick because of what Johnny’s done. But we’re gonna clean you up now, make you feel better, all right? Now, go on into the shower.”

“There’s soap in there, right?” Raylan asked him through the curtain after he went.

“Uh huh,” Boyd answered.

“Use it,” Raylan said, then frowned at himself. “Please. And you want to wash off all that dirt too, Boyd. Scrub hard, okay?” Then he amended, “Not so hard you hurt yourself though, all right?”

“Okay, Raylan,” Boyd said, automatically, though he gave no positive vocal indication he’d really understood.

Raylan had wanted to give Boyd some privacy, but as he sat on the commode, wondering if Boyd was scrubbing so hard those cuts reopened, he sighed and began removing his own clothes. It had been a few days now since he’d had a shower and he could smell those days on himself.

He gathered their things up from where they’d thrown them on the tiled floor and opened the curtain, dropping them in the bottom of the tub as he stepped in.

“Hey,” he said to Boyd. “Move back a little.”

Boyd smiled and did as he was bid.

“Did you get your back?” Raylan asked, looking at Boyd’s shoulders, arms and chest.

“I can’t reach it right,” Boyd answered. He drew his arm up across his opposite shoulder, stretching his skin so far, Raylan saw blood well and wash away from a particularly deep line under Boyd’s upper arm.

“Stop that,” Raylan told him, pulling his arm down. Boyd looked significantly chastised and Raylan scowled. He reminded himself that no free will and no memories created meant Boyd’s feelings couldn’t really be hurt. He told himself he shouldn’t care anyway. “Let me help you.”

Boyd’s hands fell to his side and Raylan took the soap from him. The markings Boyd had carved into himself did reach around to his back, though they were far more jagged and chaotic, as though he wanted to reach but, as now, he couldn’t quite make it. There was a deeper gash near the bony ridge of his spine that made Raylan wonder if someone hadn’t forcibly taken the knife from him, to prevent an even greater injury.

“Fuck you, Johnny,” Raylan muttered.

When he’d finished scrubbing he carefully looked Boyd over, never-minding modesty, to make sure there were no other injuries he hadn’t heard about yet. It would be possible something could be wrong and Boyd would have no idea. There were yellowing bruises all over his body, but none so large or severe that Raylan thought he would have cause to worry. He drew his fingers through Boyd’s shorn hair, looking for cuts or bumps, but found none. 

Boyd’s eyes were on the faucet, riveted, and Raylan just told him, “It’s not there,” without asking what he was looking at. Boyd transferred his gaze to Raylan. “Did you wash your hair?” he asked.

Boyd blinked. “With the soap,” he said.

“Wash it with Ava’s shampoo, too. I’m going to wash and then we’ll scrub the clothes, okay?”

They did as Raylan said they would and Boyd worked diligently, even as Raylan began to tire, blinking his eyes through the haze of his headache and the dizziness that only went on and on. He knew Ava kept a clothes rack in her room, so he bade Boyd take the wet clothes there and lay them out as he took much too long to pull himself out of the tub. 

He went to the medicine cabinet and retrieved Ava’s first aid kit. He popped it open and looked through it, then he looked through the cabinet itself and pulled out a half-empty bottle of hydrogen peroxide. He found a washcloth and soaked it in water from the tap and carried everything out to Ava’s bed.

The sheets smelled dusty but he laid everything out on the quilt and, seeing that Boyd had just finished laying out their clothes, said, “Boyd, come here.”

The smell of the peroxide was strong as Raylan doused a cotton ball in it and drew it across the twin slices at Boyd’s sternum. Boyd hissed a breath in and Raylan frowned. “It doesn’t hurt, Boyd,” he said, feeling strange about saying the words. He was taking the pain away from Boyd’s mind, but it was still there, still would be there when he came back to real consciousness. The damage would all still have been done.

But Boyd smiled and he nodded slowly and Raylan was relieved he wouldn’t have to hear him make that noise every time he touched him with the cotton ball.

Raylan worked steadily, wiping soaked cotton balls over the red, infected cuts, including the older one on his face, watching them bubble over with those tiny white bubbles, killing the infection and leaving the wounds open, but clean, as he wiped them again with the cool, wet cloth. 

Boyd stayed very still because Raylan asked, which was good, as it took a long time, especially around Boyd’s wrists, which Raylan bound tightly after with clean white bandages and tape. Some of the longer cuts across Boyd’s shoulders and chest were healed enough they didn’t need to be covered, but the “x” across his sternum needed a square of bandage and a lot of tape.

He hoped it would be easy to find a hiding place in the shed, where they could keep Ava’s supplies. Nothing would heal all the way if they couldn’t keep the wounds clean.

By the time he was finished, Raylan was having to blink away those dizzying lights every time he closed his eyes. “Lay down with me, Boyd,” he said, keeping his eyes shut as he sort of keeled over. He was exhausted, light-headed, and his headache hadn’t eased at all, all day. 

He felt the weight on the mattress shift as Boyd laid down beside him. He opened his eyes to meet Boyd’s, wide and still dilated black. “Be careful with the bandages,” he said, unable to recall if he’d already told Boyd that.

“All right, Raylan,” Boyd said softly. His eyes were drifting closed as well.

Raylan didn’t consciously let himself slip away, so much as he felt himself slip under something heavy and dark.

He didn’t know how long it was later that Jimmy shook him roughly awake.

“You can’t sleep here,” he said, voice gruff. “Come on.”

Raylan groaned.

“Tell him to get up,” Jimmy said.

Raylan threw him a bleary, dirty look and didn’t ask why he didn’t want to give Boyd orders, or why he couldn’t fucking look at him right since he dragged him inside the bar that morning.

“Boyd, some of your clothes are still here, ain’t they?” he asked instead.

“Yes, Raylan,” Boyd said, seemingly wide awake. He was sitting up on the bed now, as Raylan pushed himself slowly up.

Raylan glared at Jimmy again. “Go find us something to eat downstairs. I don’t care if it’s fuckin’ crackers or canned peas. I’m about to fall over and I haven't even stood up. We’ll come down after we’re dressed.”

Jimmy scowled. “Don’t fall asleep again,” he said and walked out.

“Go find some of your clothes,” Raylan told Boyd. “Heavy stuff, good for winter. Maybe bigger stuff too. I think I’m a size over you.”

Boyd’s jeans fit him okay and the shirt was only a little tight. Boyd only had one other coat, never having been someone who felt as though he needed a lot of clothing, so Raylan put three more of Boyd’s shirts on and gathered up all their damp things. He told Boyd to carry the first aid stuff and follow him down the stairs.

He ate a whole can of peaches in the truck on the way back to Johnny’s. 

Ava was waiting for them outside the shed again, cigarette in hand, eyes on the ground and arms crossed. Her eyes raked over them both as they approached, Jimmy trailing behind and she said, "Lord, Raylan. Boyd, help him walk."

Boyd immediately reached for Raylan's arm and slung it over his shoulder, taking on some of the weight it was apparently obvious Raylan's had been having difficulty supporting. She came up to them and took Raylan's other arm, shooting Jimmy a dirty look. "What is wrong with you? He's here, you need help, you tell him."

Raylan decided against trying to insist he was fine. He'd never felt so terrible in his life. "He ain't fine either, Ava," he told her instead.

"He is until a day from now, when that shit lets him realize he ain't," she replied impatiently. "I don't know what the hell you two are gonna do then."

Raylan didn't know either.

He shook them both off as they came into the shed and he supported himself by clinging to the high-stacked boxes until he could collapse on the cot. He pulled Boyd down to sit beside him, feeling a twinge of guilt for even thinking of telling him to curl up only on the dirty floor.

Ava looked down at them both with her hands on her hips. “I’m going to try and get you some meat and maybe something green. I think Boyd’s been subsisting mostly on peanuts and pretzels,” she said, motioning to the discreetly opened boxes of bulk snack food.

She knelt down in front of them and, with a quick glance at Raylan, took Boyd’s hand in hers. She pulled his sleeve up and ran her fingers over the thick bandages at his wrist. “Was it very bad?”

“I cleaned them all,” Raylan told her. “Most are at least a little infected. I think he’s got a fever from it.”

Ava raised her hand to Boyd’s forehead and smiled at him sadly when he gave her a grin. “He runs hot when he’s on the Breath. Even before the cuts.” She takes a heavy breath. “I couldn’t see very well. And I wasn’t there--are they--”

“They’re actually kind of beautiful,” Raylan said, his eyes closing. He doesn’t know why he told her that. 

There was a long moment of silence. Raylan lost track of time briefly before Ava said, “Get some rest, Raylan. We’ll leave the food for you. Johnny’s gone until tomorrow.” She shifted, standing maybe and Raylan couldn’t open his eyes. “Take care of him, baby,” Ava whispered softly.

Raylan woke at intervals of maybe a few hours and every time he did, Boyd was there with water, or the food that Jimmy brought them--SPAM in a can and a couple raw vegetables. The second time he woke his head was in Boyd’s lap and Boyd was asleep, leaning against the wall at his back.

The third time he woke, it was because Boyd was speaking to someone.

“No,” he was saying. “No. That’s not how it was.”

“Boyd?”

“I didn’t--I couldn’t stop it, Daddy.”

“Oh, shit,” Raylan said, pulling himself up. “Boyd.” Boyd’s eyes were on the back wall of the shed, in the middle, fairly high, as if the ghost of Bo Crowder was holding court on a throne of liquor bottles and cardboard. “Boyd, look at me.”

Boyd turned to him and there was no dreamy, expectant smile on his face. It was ravaged and tired and confused, hurt beyond feeling, and his eyes were still dark pools of black.

“There’s nothing there,” Raylan assured him.

Boyd turned back to the wall and he started shaking his head, “Daddy’s right there, Raylan,” he said, voice breaking in fear. “Can’t you hear him yelling at me?”

Raylan looked at the wall, where Boyd’s eyes were still trained. “He ain’t there, Boyd. Listen to me.”

Boyd’s head was still shaking. “He is and he’s right--I fucked up. I was never so smart as I thought I was, never so good at--”

Raylan pushed forward and took him by the shoulders. “You’re plenty smart, Boyd. Too smart probably. You didn’t get in this because someone was smarter than you, you were fucking outgunned.”

Boyd’s eyes went back to the wall. “I couldn’t save Ava,” Boyd mumbled and there were tears in his eyes now. “When she saved me and you--” Boyd looked at Raylan like he was seeing him for the first time. His skin was so hot, even through his coat and Raylan was afraid to hold onto him too hard, for fear of opening his wounds again. “You saved me too, Raylan. I never thought to keep you from this--I should’ve known Johnny--”

Raylan forced Boyd’s eyes away from the wall. “Why? How could you have known?”

Boyd laughed now, short, but still hysterical. His smile disappeared with the harsh noise. “Johnny was always a fucking bigot.”

Raylan felt it like a blow. 

No matter the idea was particularly rich, coming from Boyd. It just put him right back at nineteen, knowing something was between them, knowing how deeply Boyd felt it, and feeling so numb about everything and everyone that he was unable to figure out which was way up, let alone if he could feel as deeply, could make that choice.

He’d walked away first. He’d walked so long he didn’t think it mattered anymore. He’d walked so far he went in a circle, straight down to hell. 

Because it did matter, and it should never have been a choice at all.

“Daddy’s wrong, Raylan. Don’t listen to him. I never wanted this for you. Not even when you left--I knew why. I always knew--”

Boyd’s voice had taken on an increasingly desperate edge, his tone was harsh, but quiet, a whispered shout. 

“Shut up,” Raylan told him, pulling his face away from the wall again. He pulled Boyd close in against his body, wrapping arms tight around his shaking frame. He slid a hand into Boyd’s hair and pressed Boyd’s face to his chest. “Don’t look, Boyd. There ain’t nothing there. No one’s talking to you about me and I know you never meant me harm unless I meant harm on you. That’s how it always was, but I don’t want it to be that way no more. Not now. Not with things like this. I wouldn’t ask for no apology, Boyd, because I wouldn’t give none either. We’re done with that now. It’s just you and me and no one else.”

As he spoke, Boyd had slowly ceased his protest, relaxing into Raylan’s arms, and slowing his breathing, his broken cries. 

“There ain’t no one here with you but me,” Raylan said.


	5. Chapter 5

Boyd woke next to Raylan, and he hadn't done that in so long, he wondered if he was dreaming, or hallucinating--as he must have been for who knew how long.

He pulled back slightly, shifting enough that Raylan stirred, though he didn’t wake, and realized Raylan would know. He could ask him what happened.

He almost shook Raylan awake he wanted to know so badly. He scanned the room, noting his clothes left thrown over boxes and that he was wearing different clothing. He felt strange and itchy all over, as well as aching, head and body. He opened up his shirt, an old one he hadn't seen for a while and closed his eyes when he saw the bandages.

_Oh shit_ , he thought _shitshitshit_.

He must have made some kind of noise as well, because Raylan stirred and groaned, waking for certain, as he opened his eyes, blinking at the light, and they rested cautiously on Boyd.

“Are you...?” he asked, and didn’t really finish the thought.

“I’m here,” Boyd answered, understanding what he meant.

Raylan’s smile of relief was heartbreakingly small and fleeting, accompanied by a cough that was hiding some kind of laugh or sob. It was more emotion from him than Boyd recalled ever being able to produce before, even all those years ago--besides some form of anger.

Raylan’s relief turned gradually into a painful frown of confusion and abject terror. “Jesus, you really were gone,” he said in a hushed, disbelieving tone. “I never--you know, I used to think you’d changed so much, but I knew that you weren’t gone, _you_ were still there. Not with this--y-you really were gone, Boyd.”

“I know,” Boyd said. They were still quite close together. Raylan was looking up at him from where he’d laid his head. Boyd guessed he had slept half slumped against the wall, drawn into Raylan’s arms, then shifting away as they both slumbered. “Raylan, please tell me what happened.”

Memories crept into Raylan’s eyes and he blinked them away before shaking his head as he sat up. “No,” he said. “I don’t think I can do that.”

Boyd felt a strange panic rise up inside him. “Raylan, you understand, though. You lost your day, you shot that man. Don’t you want to know what he made you do? Don’t you want--”

Raylan’s expression became hard and stubborn “I might,” he said. “But I can’t tell you, Boyd. I won’t.”

Boyd tried to blink away the pain in his head, force through the spike of hurt Raylan’s refusal was driving into his chest. “Fuck you, Raylan. If you think I’m going to tell you anything about what happened when--”

“I don’t care, Boyd,” Raylan cut him off, speaking slowly and emphatically. “I don’t care what I find out about that, so long as I don’t have to talk to you about these last two days, I swear to Christ.”

Boyd took a ragged, deep breath and forced calm upon himself. He let the silence stew and stared at Raylan as he carefully avoided Boyd’s eyes.

“So you’re not going to tell me anything?” he asked softly. When Raylan didn’t respond, he added, “Not even about these bandages? About how half my clothes are here and them that’s clean on those boxes? That can’t have been quite the horror your silence is painting.”

Raylan looked up at him sharply. “Wasn’t no goddamn picnic either, asshole. You were _gone_.” He did speak again for another beat of silence, then added, as though he’d never stopped, “And all I had was that creepy smile on your face and the fact that you listened to me when I told you none of the shit you were seeing was real.”

“What was I seeing?” Boyd asked. “Things like you were seeing? Spiders and webs and shadows that crawl along the ground?”

Raylan’s eyes widened. “No. Not quite like that.”

Boyd thinned his lips. His head ached and the light was starting to hurt his eyes.

“If Johnny hadn’t called for us, I would have slept for a week, Boyd,” Raylan said quietly. “Go back to sleep.” He was clearly concerned.

Boyd thought that was interesting and so said, “No.”

Raylan leaned back. He raised his brows. “So what? You’re just going to stay awake, even though you’re tired in your bones and your head’s aching like someone’s swinging a hammer from the inside of your skull, tryin’ to crack it open and crawl on out--”

Boyd smirked. “That’s a very specific metaphor, Raylan.”

“Well that’s what it feels like, doesn’t it?”

It was.

“So you’re going to make me watch you force yourself awake, in pain, just because I’m not gonna give you what you want?”

Boyd jutted his jaw, grinding his teeth together.

“That’s some manipulative bullshit, Boyd,” Raylan said, very softly, with a cool anger Boyd had not heard from him in a long time. “That’s some Johnny Crowder bullshit.”

Boyd’s will snapped in half at those words and he spat a curse in Raylan’s direction. He threw his boot--which had been lying near the pile of fresh clothes they had brought in--at him for good measure.

Raylan still looked pissed but his eyes held at least some pleasure in his victory, especially since Boyd had thoroughly missed him. “Very mature, Boyd.”

Boyd worried that the pain and desperation he was feeling showed stark on his face, but he didn’t know how to mask it anymore. Everything hurt and everything was terrible and now Raylan could see that.

A minute or two of silence passed them by before Raylan murmured, “I’m sorry.”

Boyd raised his eyes and said nothing, so Raylan continued, “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. I know it doesn’t really make a difference, Johnny was gonna show me and show everyone in his sad little audience that he’s the one in control no matter what, but I’m sorry anyways. And I’m sorry I can’t tell you what you want to know. Not all of it.”

Boyd tilted his head. “What can you tell me?”

“We went to Ava’s house, after Johnny was through with his shit. She gave me the key and we showered. I cleaned up,” he paused, searching Boyd’s eyes for something, “those cuts of yours. I--”

Boyd wanted to look away, but Raylan looked so uncertain. “What is it?”

“I can tell you about them, if Johnny never did.” His lips were thinned in discomfort, clearly displaying a desire to be honest, but also perhaps to protect Boyd in some way. Boyd wasn’t entirely sure. 

“He didn’t,” Boyd replied.

“Do you want me to?”

“Please,” he said.

When Raylan spoke, his eyes were on the boot Boyd had thrown, off to the side of them both, where it had rolled away. “Johnny had you take off your coat, to show me, but also so everyone could see them. Only half the people gathered seemed surprised. He told me that he’d convinced you there was a demon in your belly and that you had to do something to stop it from getting inside your head. You believed him.” Raylan frowned. “He seemed to think that was so funny. That you believed him so deeply that when he handed you a knife, that’s what you did to yourself.”

Boyd thought he might be sick. He covered his eyes with a shaky palm. “Dear Lord,” he murmured. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting.

“I ain’t telling you anymore than that.” There was steel in Raylan’s tone. 

Boyd wasn’t sure he could hear anything else right now, even if Raylan was willing. He wanted to curl up on the ground, close his eyes, and dream that none of this ever happened.

“May I ask you a question?”

Boyd looked up to see that Raylan had perceived Boyd’s horror, and how poorly he was feeling. There was a soft kindness in his eyes, shadowed by an intense exhaustion Boyd was quite familiar with now. It was hard for him to remember how living in his body felt when he wasn’t weighed down by the after effects of the Breath and the heavy pressure of his utter defeat.

“Certainly, Raylan,” Boyd answered, pushing the past into his tone. He tried to smile as well, though it looked as though Raylan wasn’t having it.

His voice was serious and sad as he asked, “Why didn’t you say anything about those cuts?”

Boyd looked away. It was disgusting. Shameful. 

He answered regardless. “I had forgotten about them. It--it wasn’t the last time he dosed me that it happened, but I hadn’t taken my coat off in a while--that I remembered and--” Boyd looked back at Raylan. “I’ve been forgetting things. Sometimes the things I learn about what happened--I don’t remember them. Someone tells me and I just forget. I don’t know if it’s something my mind is doing to itself or if it’s because of the Breath, but I--Raylan, I just... forgot.” He sighed. “I’ve been feeling so shitty, I didn’t think--I don’t know what I thought.”

Raylan was making a face Boyd couldn’t decipher. “It’s okay, Boyd,” he said and was about to add something, but Boyd gave him a look that shut his mouth up tight.

“Don’t feed me no lies, Raylan. Nothing about this is okay.”

Raylan looked pissed as he replied, “Well, of course not, asshole. I’m just saying, I’m here now too. I’ll remind you, okay?”

Boyd felt stricken. He shook his head back and forth, maybe a little too hard, too long, because Raylan was starting to look at him like something strange was happening. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Raylan crossed the room, crawled actually, on hands and knees, as the distance was small. He raised one hand to Boyd’s head, just at his temple, stopping the movement. “I’ve got an idea or two, Boyd. But I’m gonna watch out for you, like I said. And like you’re gonna do for me, right?”

Boyd nodded. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so lost in Raylan’s eyes.

“I won’t tell you _everything_ is going to be okay. But we can sure as hell try and make it better for each other, can’t we?”

Boyd nodded and everything in him screamed to push forward, to fall into Raylan’s embrace, because it was solid and strong and nothing else seemed to be that way in that moment--hadn’t been for so long now.

“Raylan, I’m sorry,” he gasped, not sure how coherently. “I need--”

“Come here,” Raylan said and pulled him forward.

Boyd went, but all the way he kept on saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” until Raylan told him, “Christ, Boyd, shut your mouth,” and Boyd did, because it seemed prudent to listen to him. Raylan pulled him close and back on the cot. They’d never embraced like this, not once, no matter how many times Boyd had thought of it--just pulling Raylan close to him. And now, it felt poisoned and rotten. He trembled with it and had to stop himself from apologizing again.

“Lay down with me,” Raylan said, fingers carding through his shorn hair. He didn’t remember when it was cut, he wondered if it was another thing Johnny’d told him to do himself. “Come on, come here,” he said, like Boyd wasn’t coming. He was. He didn’t want to be anywhere but in Raylan’s arms.

Raylan started speaking softly. He said, “Tell me how you helped me when I was seeing things that weren’t there.”

Boyd heard himself make a whimpering noise. He didn’t want to do that. He felt a deeper appreciation for Raylan’s previous reticence. He pressed his forehead to Raylan’s chest.

They were both laid out on the mattress now. Boyd had his hands bunched up into fists in the layers of Raylan’s shirts--Boyd’s shirts, he reminded himself. They used to share clothing when they climbed out of the mine, if Raylan couldn’t make it home, if Boyd didn’t get around to doing his own laundry.

“How did you make it better, Boyd?” Raylan asked. “Please tell me.”

When Boyd spoke, he wanted so badly to look in Raylan’s eyes, but found he couldn’t. He spoke to his chest. “I told you to forget what happened--none of it had happened. I told you everything was beautiful and you believed me and that we were somewhere else, together.”

“Where?”

“In my truck. After Myrtle Creek.”

Raylan let out a breath. “Oh.”

Boyd smiled. “Yeah.”

“And nothing else ever happened?” There was a tentative, but also tender tone to Raylan’s voice now.

“No,” Boyd answered and finally did pull back to look Raylan in the face. He wasn’t smiling, but his eyes were clear and almost bright. “Not to you. Not after I told you it hadn’t. You smiled and you fell asleep next to me.”

Raylan huffed softly. “That wasn’t even a particularly great day.” His fingers were drawing little circles across Boyd’s scalp in a deep massage. His headache wasn’t gone, but it was helping.

Boyd closed his eyes again, pushed into Raylan’s attentions. “We were alive and you knew I loved you.”

“I did,” Raylan agreed. “Boyd, I am so sorry.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Boyd told him tiredly. “It’s so long ago. So far from here.”

“Where do you want to be? Next--if there’s a next time.”

Boyd laughed, brokenly and short. “There will be,” but he paused. He hadn’t thought about it. He said the first thing that came to mind. “I want to be in the hills. In the springtime. When it’s warm but damp with dew, early in the morning, and quiet. I want to see you walking ahead of me, throwing your smile back. I want you to offer to carry my jacket.”

Raylan had stiffened, was forcing himself to relax. “Boyd, that was the day of your mother’s funeral.”

Boyd knew that. He smiled, bowing his head, and Raylan drew his fingers further down, grazing his nails along the sensitive skin at the base of his skull. “You followed me and when you caught up, I remember you said, ‘Want to see something cool?’ and your smile was sad, like you were soaking in my grief, taking some away from me, but true, like you really wanted to help. And I followed you...”

“And I showed you my grandad’s old tree stand,” Raylan said, a smile in his voice. “It wasn’t even that fucking cool.”

“I thought it was,” Boyd replied. “At least cooler than being back at the house, with Daddy on a tirade and Bowman crying in his room.”

“My mama told me to go after you. She said you shouldn’t be by yourself. I remember,” Raylan’s voice had gone hushed and soft, “before that day, I’d always thought absolutely nothing could touch you.”

Boyd choked on something in his throat, made a strangled noise and Raylan hushed him, just as soft as his words.

“Maybe we won’t be okay, Boyd. But I’m gonna take care of you. I’m gonna tell you to go back to that day.”

“Raylan,” Boyd said, suddenly urgent, forcing the words out so he couldn’t take them back, “That was the day I knew that I loved you. Tell me that, too, in case I forget.”

Raylan was still again. “That long?”

They’d been fourteen.

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Raylan breathed. “Okay, Boyd.” He tilted his head forward, brushing his forehead against Boyd’s, his nose close to Boyd’s too. He thought Raylan might kiss him. “And now?”

Boyd shook his head. He couldn’t push forward. “I can’t. I can’t feel anything, Raylan. I don't know.” 

Raylan drew a hand around to cup Boyd’s cheek. “That’s how I felt back then,” he said.

“I know. I always knew that about you--about us. It’s--don’t apologize anymore. I know.”

Raylan laughed again, brittle, but not quite as broken as Boyd’s. “We’re so fucked, Boyd.”

There was a sound, the door sliding open, the cold air from outside. “Boyd, oh--”

It was Ava’s voice, abruptly cut off.

Raylan pulled hastily away and Boyd really wanted to keep his eyes closed. _Oh, Ava,_ he thought and could feel only sadness.

He turned and opened his eyes to meet hers, which were very wide, afraid. “Oh, Lord, Boyd,” she said hurriedly. “I’m--it’s good you’re with us. Johnny--”

“You’re here for _him_ ,” Raylan spat and Boyd shot him a hard glare. He knew about Ava too, she was doing what she had to. He’d heard Johnny threaten her. With prison again, with the Breath, with whoring--so many things Johnny could do to her. He’d been glad once, Johnny was so distracted by destroying Boyd.

She shook her head, as if denying it, but he knew. She said, “The Marshals are here. They were too yesterday, but you were both out cold. They want to talk to you, Boyd. They won’t go away.”

“They think it was Boyd who poisoned me?”

Boyd laughed. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Probably.”

Ava’s expression tightened, as if she were pained. “Johnny said you were to come out, like you’re free, say you tend the bar. That you’re equals now and Johnny handles the shit. That--that you ain’t been the same since they took me away.”

Boyd laughed again, hollowly and ragged. He laughed so hard Raylan knelt next to him and put his hand across Boyd’s back, attempting to soothe.

Ava looked near tears again, glancing between him laughing and the open door behind her. “Boyd, you don’t come now, they’re gonna search for you and--”

“Why shouldn’t we let them?” Raylan’s voice was hard and it sobered Boyd instantly.

“You forget, son,” he said softly. “They’ll find you and they’ll believe you about what happened, but they’ll still put you in jail and Ava won’t ever come out again.”

“I seen women go back in there after being out, Raylan,” Ava cried. “The guards don’t protect them at all. I go back in, I’m as good as dead.”

Raylan turned away from them both. “Shit.”

“I’m coming,” Boyd said, pushing himself to his feet. He was unsteady and Raylan put a hand under his elbow. “I’m fine,” he said, and moved away. He turned to Ava. “I take it you’re to stay here?”

She nodded.

“All right.” There was a heaviness to his voice that was beginning to feel far too familiar. He leaned into her and left a dry kiss on her cheek. “Don’t cry, baby,” he said. He hadn't called her that in a long time.

Johnny stood in the back room, door held closed behind him. He spoke quietly and Boyd assumed the Marshals were in the bar proper, waiting. “You fuck this up for me, he’s the one who’ll get it. Not you.”

Boyd stared Johnny right in the eyes. He looked a little shaky. Boyd smiled. 

He’d never been afraid of Johnny, not really. Just the white powder he held in his hand. He wasn’t even afraid of that anymore. Raylan would do what he could. Everything after that was a long or short road to death, perhaps even peace.

Johnny on edge was Johnny being careful. He could fuck this up for Boyd as well. He had no real reason but a hard as nails grudge to keep Raylan where he was. He could pin the poison, the murder on Jimmy. People must have seen him in Lexington. “Let’s see what they have to say,” Boyd replied.

“Boyd Crowder,” a man’s voice called from the bar. Too young to be Art Mullen. It must be the younger one, the one who shot Colt.

Johnny let him pass.

Boyd stepped slowly through the swinging door, his whole body still aching and itching and heavy. “Deputies,” he said to Gutterson, then nodded at the other one, Brooks, the black girl. “Ma’am.” Oh, how she hated him.

“Mr. Crowder,” Gutterson greeted.

Boyd reached for a glass and a bottle. If he was tending bar, he could have a fucking drink while they had this conversation. “Boyd,” he said, “Please. Do you want anything?”

Brooks looked disgusted by the idea and Gutterson just shook his head. “No thanks. We’re here to ask you about Raylan.”

Boyd glanced at Johnny who’d settled near the back doorway, arms crossed, watching all three. “What about him?”

“Raylan allegedly shot an inmate at Little Sandy, bribed his way in and out. You must have heard. It’s national news,” Gutterson was frowning at him, eyes on his hands as they poured the bourbon. 

Boyd hadn’t known that about the news, though for a long time it had seemed like all news was the national kind. He made himself a double. 

“Don’t reach under that bar again, Boyd.” Gutterson’s tone was fairly light, but the threat implicit.

An order, not a request. “Sure, Deputy,” he said and smiled.

Brooks’ eyes narrowed.

“As I told you, Boyd ain’t been feeling like himself since Ava was put away. He don’t pay too much attention, these days,” Johnny said in a loud voice from behind him. Boyd could feel eyes at his back.

“Let the man speak for himself,” Brooks said, crossing her arms in an imitation of Johnny.

Boyd let the silence stretch, then he replied, quite reasonably, “I ain't been feeling myself. I don’t pay attention.”

Now the two Marshals began to look a little suspicious, even a little concerned. He was almost touched. “That cut looks nasty, Boyd,” Gutterson said, pointing to Boyd’s face.

Boyd blinked. He’d actually forgotten about it. He suppressed a shudder and grimaced. This wasn’t an act, he should be able to keep it together. He wasn’t certain he wanted to. 

“I--” he fumbled for a lie. Lies came from a truth distorted. Boyd didn’t know how he’d come by the wound. It was made before his demon-trapping designs. He’d woken to pain and dried blood across his eyelid and dripped into his ear.

“You were blackout when you got that,” Johnny jumped in. “‘Member, Boyd, the bottle of Jack.”

Boyd worked his jaw and met Gutterson’s eyes. “I actually don’t remember,” he said.

Gutterson took a breath while Brooks glowered at Johnny. 

Gutterson said slowly, “There was a package on Raylan’s desk the morning he went to Little Sandy. He opened it, received a phone call, and walked out in the middle of a work day. I witnessed it. I handled the paper--it was all just paper--in the package after he left and I lost about twelve hours of time, Mr. Crowder. Have you ever heard of the drug Scopolamine?”

Boyd closed his eyes. Of course Raylan just left the package there. Too elegant for Johnny, indeed. “The Devil’s Breath,” he said, opening them again. “It’s what them police officers were on in Shreveport those months back, yes?”

“It is,” Gutterson said. “It’s coming up from Colombia. It’s fucking dangerous, Crowder. We know Raylan was on it when he shot that man. We know he’s not culpable.”

“You’re speaking to me as though I know something about it, Deputy,” Boyd said. “I don’t.” He glanced at Johnny. He thought, if he could make them see.

“The package was post-marked from Cumberland,” Brooks added.

“Plenty of people in Cumberland might want a prisoner dead. This is Harlan, as I’m sure you know.” Boyd couldn’t bring himself to smile.

“This place is ten minutes from Cumberland proper, Crowder. Harlan’s a dry county, as I’m sure you know.”

“Might as well be Harlan,” Boyd muttered. He was going to lose it. His head was aching again. He didn’t want to fight on semantics. He didn’t want to talk about Raylan at all. “Can’t get out alive anyway--” He broke off. He hadn't meant to say that.

“Boyd--”

“Johnny, I need to sit down,” Boyd said loudly, cutting off his cousin’s second warning.

Gutterson pulled out a chair and kicked it towards the bar. Boyd walked around, holding onto the drink he hadn’t even taken a sip of yet, and sat down heavily.

Brooks exchanged a glance with Gutterson, then looked back at Johnny who remained silent.

“Did Raylan tell you I served in Afghanistan?” Gutterson asked, eyeing Boyd carefully.

Boyd quirked his lips. “Why would he have done that?”

Gutterson shrugged. “I know you two had a weird amount of chats for people on the opposite side of the law.”

“Well, I could see it on you anyway,” Boyd replied. “You’re a shade too old for Iraq, I’d say. You got out after, what? Two tours? Then signed your life away to the government. Must have been right before things really went topside.”

Gutterson raised his eyebrows. They’d never really talked this much before. He must have assumed Boyd was just like Johnny. “It was,” he said. “I only mention it because I saw your friend Colt at the VA a couple times. I wasn’t sure if you noticed we were vaguely friendly.”

“Just a little less friendly than me and Raylan, I’d wager.” Boyd sipped at his drink. It was sort of nice to have an actual conversation with someone, even if it was only a slightly less fraught than usual.

Tim smiled. “I guess so,” he said, then sobered. “His was a pretty tragic tale, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“Yes, it was.” Boyd was really, very tired of tragedy.

“You never want to have to put down a man, you think can be saved. Colt’s government let him down.” Brooks was looking at Gutterson now like she had no idea where he was going with this either.

“You don’t really want to _be_ the man in question, either Deputy,” Boyd said.

“That’s a truth well-spoken, Boyd.” He paused, raising a hand to draw his thumb across his brow, like this whole conversation was giving him a headache as bad as Boyd’s. It might be, if it was only four days since he’d come off the Breath. Then he said, “You know I hear the stockades can be almost as bad as what we’ve got going on stateside these days,” Gutterson says, eyeing Boyd carefully. “Could be, Colt forced my hand in order to avoid some jail-time.”

Boyd was fairly certain Colt knew he was on the road to an early grave either via his drug habit, or the long arm of Boyd’s own wrath for fucking everything up with Ellen May so completely. But he stilled himself and met Gutterson’s eyes. 

The Marshal knew more about Colt than he was letting on, Boyd knew that. He probably knew better than Boyd what Colt’s motivations were. “Could be, Deputy,” Boyd replied slowly. He smiled then, trying to reproduce Raylan’s inappropriate grin. These two had a hunch, they must have known what it looked like.

“Boyd,” Johnny said, a warning, but a quiet one. Boyd turned to him fast, attentive, but let Gutterson’s voice draw his attention away again.

Gutterson’s eyes flitted between Johnny and Boyd. He said, “Even if it might’ve been proven Colt wasn’t at fault for his crimes. Still, no one wants to be inside right now.”

“No they don’t,” Boyd said softly. “They surely don’t, Deputy.”

“Might be,” Gutterson replied, “even worse than death, in some cases.”

“That it might.” Boyd tightened his jaw and risked the words, “Now, I already said I don’t know anything about it, Deputies, but it might be best--for everyone--you consider Raylan Givens a lost cause.”

“I’m sorry to say, that I think that you might be right, Boyd,” he replied. He glanced derisively in Johnny’s direction. “Make no mistake, Mr. Crowder, we do know who you work for. Today, we’re here for Raylan, tomorrow, who the hell knows.” 

Johnny snorted and he sounded like an idiot more than he sounded tough.

Deputy Brooks took a step toward Boyd as Gutterson turned away. “It’s a shame when the government put here to protect people can’t protect its own any longer,” she said.

“It is that, ma’am,” Boyd said nodding, “But, in this place, the Harlan Raylan and I were raised in, we can always be counted on to protect our own.”

“I sincerely hope so, Boyd.” She offered him a smile and a firm handshake before she too turned away.

When the door closed behind them, Johnny crossed the room in three long strides and struck Boyd with an open hand across the face. Boyd fell dramatically off his chair and onto the floor. The blow had been powerful and, while not entirely unexpected, much faster than Boyd could react to in that moment.

On his hands and knees he looked up at his cousin. “In your opinion, Johnny, how is it, exactly, that I fucked that up for you?”

There was rage behind Johnny’s eyes. “You practically shouted _everything_ at them you fucking asshole. They know--”

“Nothing for sure,” Boyd said, breathing hard through the pain in his face and still pounding through his skull. “They don’t want to. They won’t be back, not for Raylan.”

“They’ll be back for me.”

Boyd couldn’t stop his grin from spreading. “You really thought just me talking to them would get them out of your hair? Johnny, everyone knows who you work for. Everyone knows who Duffy works for. Just because the crime is organized doesn’t make it secret. That’s precisely the idea. Fear.” He shook his head. He almost laughed. “They can’t come after you unless they have a case. And I think we all know now, the Eastern Kentucky office of the United States Marshal Service doesn’t have anything near the kind of funds needed to go up against the likes of men to which you owe your allegiance. You’re worrying about a line of ants on your picnic blanket, when there’s a bear at your fucking back.”

"And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?" Johnny asked. 

"It means, Sammy Tonin’s gonna kill you before any Federal might get you in a lineup, asshole. You best try not to fuck things up for _him _."__

__Johnny’s face was apoplectic, eyes bulging in fury. Jimmy had come out from wherever he was hiding to listen in and Johnny turned to him and growled, “Go get him. Ava too.”_ _

__Boyd cursed himself silently, unable to think of anything else he could have done. They left hadn’t they? If he’d flat out denied everything, if he hadn’t given an inch, they’d have known he was lying. Why couldn’t Johnny see that?_ _

__He kept his mouth shut, unwilling to sound so desperate, even now._ _

__Raylan was walking better, Boyd thought, than the last time they’d both been pulled out of the shed. He looked at Johnny darkly. “Where’s your audience?” he asked._ _

__Boyd wanted to tell him to shut up. He was only going to make the bad worse._ _

__“It’s a private show today, asshole,” Johnny said and turned away. He gave a twisted smile. “I’ll be right back with the entertainment.”_ _

__Boyd and Raylan exchanged a glance. Johnny didn’t keep the shit on him. He hid it somewhere, only took what he needed._ _

__“Baby,” Ava’s voice came uncertainly through the door._ _

__Boyd closed his eyes again. “They won’t be back for Raylan. They don’t know anything for sure, but they know you’re lost to them,” Boyd said, turning to his friend. He thought they really could call each other that now, and not think of it as bravado, as more lie than truth._ _

__Raylan knelt by Boyd. Jimmy gave no indication he cared what they did, so long as they didn’t leave the room. He turned Boyd’s face with gentle fingers to see the raw red mark across his face. He was frowning when he said, “If they’re gone, why is he so pissed?”_ _

__“They know he’s rotten,” Boyd said, hearing Johnny’s footsteps. He hated how his stomach shrank. He hated the fear he knew Raylan saw in his eyes. It wasn’t for himself, not anymore. “I couldn’t--they know something is wrong. They’ll be back for _him_.”_ _

__Johnny approached them fast, tearing out of the back room. “Out of the way, cousin, or you’ll get it too.”_ _

__Boyd rolled away and Jimmy came around fast behind Raylan as he tried to back up, get away from the white powder clamped between Johnny’s thumb and forefinger. Boyd didn’t think it was as much as usual, but he shoved it right up Raylan’s nose, while Jimmy held onto his hair._ _

__The effect was almost instantaneous. Boyd hadn’t seen it come on anyone before now and it shocked him. Raylan didn’t quite freeze, but he did slow his struggle and Johnny smiled at him, so fucking pleased with himself, patted him once on the cheek, and said, “Relax, Raylan,” and he did. He practically melted into Jimmy’s arms, who dropped him to the floor. He fell to his knees and swayed there, looking up at Johnny like he’d just given him an incredible gift._ _

__“What can you tell me about your fellow marshals, Gutterson and Brooks, Raylan?” Johnny asked, backing up to sit casually on one of the stools._ _

__“They’re good,” Raylan said smiling. He began by speaking slowly, but increased his pace as he continued. “Gutterson’s a veteran. Afghanistan. A sharpshooter. He ain’t a natural detective, but he’s got a good gut that he trusts and it serves him. He’s a better foot-soldier, but he hates orders that don’t sit right. He likes the chase. He drinks too much on weekends. Rachel is a mystery. Cool. Smart. She don’t take shit, but she’s not big enough to be great in a fight. She’s mean when cornered. Good eye. Good shot, but Gutterson’s better. She’s keen on details and she hates injustice. She divorced her husband for reasons she can’t explain to anyone and her eyes are harder than they used to be.”_ _

__Boyd stared at him. He’d known Raylan kept tabs on people, cataloged their details in his mind. Boyd did that too, but that--he’d just boiled them down to their essence while under the influence of a drug that ceases all free thought. Raylan just _knew_ that, like he’d know a friend’s name or how to pick up a fork and knife._ _

__“What about Boyd?” Johnny asked, softly, obviously relishing the honesty._ _

__Raylan blinked at him._ _

__“Tell me about Boyd, Raylan.”_ _

__Raylan smiled, so much wider than before. “Boyd is Boyd,” he said. “Boyd is Harlan and Harlan is Boyd. With all the good and all the bad, he’s home.” He shook his head, quick, like a wet dog, and continued, voice thick with something, “Boyd is smart. So smart he’s blind to the things he don’t know. It happens so rare. His weakness is his pride and sometimes, his certainty is too. Boyd is always sincere, even when he’s spinning a lie. Boyd likes making money and blowing shit up. He loves words, and complicated sentences, and poetry, and Ava. And once, a long time ago, he loved me.”_ _

__Boyd felt his breath catch. He heard Ava’s do the same. Johnny looked over at him darkly. “I knew it. You fuckin’ fags.”_ _

__It had barely been a secret. Boyd was too young to keep it that way to anyone who was looking. It had been so obvious, too, for so long, that Raylan had no idea what to do with it and that nothing had really been going on between them. Not anything that would get them into any real trouble._ _

__“Anything else?”_ _

__Raylan frowned, but spoke anyway, unable to say no. “There’s beauty in him. Hidden sometimes, but it’s there. When you see it, you can’t look away for long.”_ _

__“I bet you loved it when he came all over you,” Johnny said and Boyd froze. Johnny looked right at Boyd and a smile broke fast across his face. “He didn’t tell you, did he? What that shit got you up to?” Johnny laughed. “I bet he couldn't even fucking look at you, you degenerate.”_ _

__Boyd realized he was just shaking his head no._ _

__Johnny turned back to Raylan. “Tell me how you felt about Boyd coming all over you, Raylan. Right here, in front of everybody.”_ _

__Raylan answered, immediately. “I was horrified.”_ _

__“Did you feel sick?”_ _

__“Yes,” Raylan said._ _

__Johnny laughed again. “There you go, Boyd, maybe he didn’t love it so much.”_ _

__Of course he didn’t. Boyd knew, Raylan hadn’t told him because Raylan was horrified for him. He didn’t want him to know. Boyd wasn’t about to let Johnny’s skewed perception twist what was really going on here._ _

__“You little fuckers,” Johnny was saying now. “I’m not surprised, you know?”_ _

__Boyd didn’t speak. Johnny shouldn’t be surprised. Johnny was there more than anybody had been. Boyd used to think he could count on Johnny, for his silence, his support. No longer._ _

__“I remember,” he said. “When we was all what? Seventeen?”_ _

__Boyd closed his eyes. His reflexes, or subconscious, or what-have-you, seemed to think he could block these things out, just by blocking out the light that still hurt his eyes, or the vision of Raylan blinking and smiling and swaying to Johnny’s whims._ _

__“And Boyd--you must’ve been so hung up on this little shit-kicker, you’d’ve done anything to get him to look at you. Even if he was mad. Or,” Johnny spun around, as though he’d just thought of something revolutionary, “Maybe you was trying to get him out of your head--screwing that girl he was sweet on. Raylan, what was her name?”_ _

__“Allison,” Raylan said. “Allison Cordry.”_ _

__Johnny smiled and stepped away from his stool, up close in Raylan’s face. “And you were so pissed, weren’t you?”_ _

__Raylan turned his head, so slowly, as if the weight of Johnny’s words were pulling it down and towards Boyd. “Yeah. I was pissed.”_ _

__“How pissed?”_ _

__“Pissed as hell,” Raylan answered. He was frowning now, like he really remembered._ _

__These were also things Raylan knew, but Boyd understood what Johnny was working towards. Real feeling. Dredged up, riled up enough, to provoke something vicious, not just sharp and immediate, but long-lasting and painful._ _

__Boyd would have chosen the day they came face to face again and Raylan realized what he’d become._ _

__One extra word, one single push, and Raylan would have cracked. His veneer of friendliness, of trying to catch up, would have been gone and he would have pushed Boyd up against one of those pews in the rundown church with the sunlight pouring in from all sides and his hat would have been tilted, or knocked clean off, and Boyd would have smiled and said, “Do what you want, Raylan,” and Raylan would have kissed him or punched him in the fucking nose._ _

__He would have been so pissed._ _

__But Johnny wasn’t there that day. And Johnny didn’t know about that. And here Johnny was going to fail, because even though Raylan swung at him the day Jenny Gregg told everyone he’d fucked Raylan’s girl, Raylan didn’t care for that girl anymore than he cared for his breakfast that morning, or any morning after._ _

__Raylan had only come at him because everyone expected him to. Raylan had always been far too concerned with everyone’s expectations._ _

__“What did you do, Raylan?” Johnny asked. “After you heard?”_ _

__“I pushed Jerry Ray into the lockers real fucking hard, because I didn’t know what to do with my hands and my arms. They needed to hit something. Felt like they was burnin’. I ran through the halls, looking for him--found him smoking in the stairwell down from the Principal’s office. You were there.” Raylan eyes had gone even more distant, but they blinked at Johnny as he finished._ _

__“And you hit him, didn’t you?”_ _

__“Yeah, I threw a right hook at him. Connected hard. He wasn’t expecting it. Didn’t get another one in for two more blows though. And he looked--”_ _

__“He’s right over there, Raylan,” Johnny said, pointing. “Forget what you did. Jerry Ray just told you. He said Boyd took that girl’s cherry right out from under your nose. Got her drunk on Jack Daniels of all things and stuck it in her ‘til she moaned and cried.”_ _

__Raylan turned, frowning, to stare at Boyd, who hadn't moved an inch from where he’d rolled away across the dirty floor. The anger didn’t surface on his face until Johnny murmured, “You must be so pissed, Raylan.”_ _

__“Yeah,” he said, voice going cold. “I’m really pissed off.”_ _

__“And you’re gonna do something about it. About your burning hands, aren’t you?”_ _

__Boyd stared as Raylan lifted his hands from his sides and looked at them as though he’d never seen them before, as though he had no idea what they might do. “Yeah,” he said after a moment._ _

__“He’s not even sorry,” Johnny went on. “Look at him. He’s not.”_ _

__Boyd shook his head. He didn’t think speaking to Raylan was a good idea in that moment. He knew he couldn’t stop this. Anything he did would just provoke Johnny into further bouts of sadism._ _

__Raylan stood, very slowly, but when he moved towards Boyd he did it fast, striding across the room just like Johnny had. Boyd was put to mind of the sight of Raylan flying down the stairs, an avenging angel of fury calling him out and coming down hard with the same right hook he threw that day. It hurt just as much now, more probably, since Boyd still couldn’t see straight from his aching head._ _

__“I’m so fucking pissed at you,” Raylan muttered as he hit Boyd across the face another time. He pulled him up and knocked him to the ground again. There was blood in Boyd’s eyes now and his cheek and jaw were a riot of pain. Raylan kicked him in the stomach next and he lost his breath._ _

__Boyd wanted to apologize, for this and for the thing with the girl. He didn’t know what he was thinking back then--not that night anyway. Allison was already drunk. Johnny got it wrong._ _

__She’d been waiting for Raylan to fuck her, she said so herself. But her daddy would have shot him, he tried to come home with her and Raylan never wanted to take her to his house. That’s what she said. She just wanted a fuck and Boyd was drunk too and he thought, why not? He could never have the thing he wanted._ _

__They’d been seventeen and it was three years since he loved Raylan the first time, but it had taken him two more to realize what it was and it had only been six months since he jacked off to the thought of Raylan being with him. Just looking at him and saying his name--_ _

__“Boyd,” Raylan mumbled with blow after blow. “I’m so pissed, Boyd.”_ _

__Boyd let out a strangled moan. He was so sorry._ _

__“You don’t get to do that,” Raylan was muttering now, so soft Boyd was sure Johnny couldn’t hear. Raylan’s fists were slowing, like his anger was running out. “You don’t get to look at me that way--the way you look and--you don’t get to--”_ _

__He heard a scream from behind the bar. “Oh, Jesus,” Ava sobbed, finally breaking._ _

__He wondered if she heard the noise of the fight, if she’d heard Boyd’s grunts of pain, the creaking of Raylan’s knuckles, or if she was making herself watch. He wasn’t sure if bone had been broken._ _

__“Johnny,” her plea was garbled. Raylan was still talking to him about what he didn’t get to do. Ava was saying something about killing people._ _

__“Raylan, stop,” Johnny said and everything was silence._ _

__There was a ringing in Boyd’s ears, but he made himself look up, and look at Raylan. Who was staring at him like he wasn’t sure what had just happened. It was mostly how he always looked on the Breath, slightly lost, but intensely attentive._ _

__“You’re okay, Raylan,” Boyd said, mouth thick with blood. Raylan smiled at him._ _

__He couldn’t quite sit up yet, everything screaming at him in pain, but he did look over to see Ava and Johnny having a tense argument. Boyd hadn’t seen her look so riled up about anything in a long time. Johnny looked furious, his muscles tense, as if holding back from hitting her._ _

__He thought, if Johnny did hit her, he’d send Raylan over there to snap his neck. He was pretty sure Raylan knew how to do that, or could gather at least enough force to get it done, no matter how messy._ _

__But Johnny turned away from her, shaking his head and twisting his face into a snarl. He looked between Boyd and Raylan. Raylan’s eyes were on something in the corner._ _

__Boyd didn’t even think. He started to say, “Raylan, it’s not--”_ _

__“It _is_ there,” Johnny broke through, booming loud and grinning now. “What is it, Raylan?”_ _

__“Spider,” Raylan said, tonelessly. “A big motherfucker. Eight hairy legs. Eight blue eyes. Milky blue.”_ _

__“How big?”_ _

__“Like a big rat. Long like a ferret.” Raylan’s eyes had grown larger as he stared at it, like he’d just realized he should be afraid._ _

__Johnny gave Boyd a look and said, “You got yours. Now he gets his.”_ _

__Boyd thought very hard about begging._ _

__“Take off your shirts, Raylan,” Johnny said. “I know he took you to Ava’s by the way. Don’t think you got something over on me, cousin.”_ _

__Boyd forced a smile. He bet it looked terrifying. “Oh, I wouldn’t dare,” he said._ _

__Johnny didn’t take his eyes off Boyd’s face as he spoke, and Boyd knew--had pretty much known from the moment he’d seen Raylan sitting in that chair not a foot from where he was kneeling now--that none of this had anything at all to do with Raylan. Johnny wanted Boyd to suffer and suffer through Raylan and suffer through Ava and then die._ _

__“Raylan, that big motherfucker is on your back now, isn’t he?”_ _

__“Oh, shit,” Raylan swore, and bent over, reaching across his shoulder, grasping desperately. “Holy fuck--”_ _

__“He’s gonna sink his chompers in, Raylan,” Johnny said. “You gotta get him with your belt. The buckle. That’ll do it.”_ _

__Raylan didn’t even bother to respond. He stripped off his belt lightening quick and swung it hard across his back. He cried out, wordless, in pain and fear._ _

__“He’s still there, Raylan. Keep going.”_ _

__Boyd made himself watch the brutal display. He did not look at Johnny, or let his eyes stray to Ava. She’d stopped crying and he wondered if she was just numb, watching Raylan strike himself over and over, so much he stopped crying out as well. He just struck every time Johnny said the thing that wasn’t there still was and Raylan believed him and kept going, on and on and on._ _

__Even Johnny was out of breath, when he finally did not speak again. Raylan was left heaving breaths, still kneeling on the floor, blood across his face. Boyd didn’t know if it was from the beating he’d given or taken._ _

__Johnny’s face looked sullen now, when Boyd chanced a glance, as if he didn’t get what he wanted out of the entire experience. He turned away, disgusted, and called to Jimmy and Ava, “Take care of them. I need ‘em for something in a couple weeks.”_ _

__He watched Raylan black out when Jimmy tried to pull him to his feet. The boy had blood all over his hands._ _

__Ava didn’t touch Boyd, only watched carefully as he pulled himself to his feet and held out her hands, like a spotter, when he swayed slightly._ _

__“I’ll be okay,” he mumbled, wishing he could keep his eyes on Raylan and the floor at the same time._ _

__“Not if your damned cousin has anything to say about it,” she hissed, then shook her head. “I’m sorry, Boyd, I--”_ _

__“This isn’t your fault. It’s Johnny’s,” Boyd said thickly. “Mine too, if we’re looking to spread blame around.” He should have realized Johnny was much more of an entitled prick than he’d ever led on. He was always selfish in the sandbox. Then again, Boyd had been too._ _

__Nevermind that it hadn’t been Boyd’s fault Bo found out about Johnny’s hand in that stupid scheme with the meth truck. Johnny wasn’t smart about it. It hadn’t been Boyd’s job to make sure he was okay. They’d never agreed on anything specific._ _

__Nevermind it was Bo’s hands on that shot gun that tore through Johnny’s gut._ _

__Nevermind it was Boyd’s hands, Boyd’s smarts, Boyd’s deeds that got the Crowder family back this bar, back their birthright. If Johnny knew how to be patient--_ _

__“Boyd, baby, come back to me,” he heard Ava say desperately. They were back in the shed. Boyd blinked at the light. He could only open one eye. Ava touched the side of his face gingerly. “You’re okay,” she said, almost to herself. “You’re gonna be fine.”_ _

__He closed his eyes again and woke hours later with vague recollections of being fed water and aspirin and some food. With Ava murmuring more small words to him, forcing smiles that reassured no one. He remembered asking after Raylan._ _

__“He’s sleeping,” she said. “We told him to sleep.”_ _

__“Did you...” he couldn’t think of the words, “...put him in the...truck?”_ _

__She touched his face again. Maybe it was a kiss. “Yes, baby. We surely did. Don’t fret.”_ _

__When he woke again, his headache had not left him. It had lessened, but wasn’t gone. Ava and Jimmy were elsewhere and he watched Raylan sleep like the dead, lying flat on his stomach, so as not to disturb the bandages over his wounds, still slowly seeping red through the stark white fabric._ _

__He felt a strange haze fall over him. There was a buzzing behind his eyes that was too fuzzy to be a part of his headache. Everything hurt so much, he willed himself numb and it didn’t work at all. He moved little, and thought of virtually nothing until Raylan stirred._ _

__“Mm back hurts,” he mumbled into the pillow. His eyes were screwed shut and his brows drawn down. “He’s always so mad, Helen, he’s--”_ _

__He broke off with a stifled gasp of pain as he blinked his eyes open and stiffened. A high and pained sound, not far from a whine, fell from his mouth._ _

__“Don’t sit up,” Boyd croaked and Raylan stilled, only moving to turn his head in the direction of Boyd’s voice. “Are you here with me?” Boyd asked him. He thought Raylan’s response was too immediate. Was he seeing Helen, or even Arlo, instead of Boyd?_ _

__Raylan’s eyes held a confusion and creeping guilt that answered Boyd’s question even before he said, “Yeah, Boyd. I’m here.”_ _

__“You were dreaming just a moment ago,” Boyd said._ _

__“Was I?” He still hadn’t moved, but Boyd could tell he didn’t understand why Boyd told him not to. “What happened?”_ _

__Boyd jutted his jaw in anger, remembering what Johnny had said about when he was under. “I’ll tell you, Raylan, but I’ll tell you first what Johnny said to me soon as he had you on his fucking Breath. He said to you, I bet you loved it when Boyd came all over you and you said that you did not. You were horrified.”_ _

__Raylan closed his eyes in defeat. “Boyd--”_ _

__“No, you listen for a minute, Raylan,” Boyd said. “This is why. This is why you tell me what he does to you and me when I’m under and why I’ll tell you right now that he brought you back to the day you found out I’d fucked Allison junior year and he had you beat me into the ground. Then he told you there was a fucking spider on your back and got you to flagellate yourself for a good twenty minutes while Ava and I watched. This is why we’re not going to keep things from each other again, do you understand me?”_ _

__“Okay, Boyd,” Raylan said and there was such exhaustion in his voice, Boyd could barely stand it._ _

__He felt terrible._ _

__His head still ached and the muscles in his stomach tightened and burned. He knew there were bruises there and all across his face and arms. He saw Raylan look at him with something like dawning horror, taking in all his injuries and he said, “Don’t do that, Raylan. This wasn’t you.”_ _

__Raylan frowned like he didn’t agree._ _

__“Do you know what else you said?” Boyd asked and didn’t wait for Raylan to answer. “When Johnny brought you back to that day in the stairwell, you started talking, when you were hitting me.” It all felt sort of far away suddenly, hazy like before, and Boyd struggled to remember just what it was Raylan said. It had seemed important a moment ago. “You said...something...” Boyd felt himself trail off, he lost track of it and his eyes fell to rest on a pile of bloody hand towels, usually reserved for dishwashing that Ava must have used on Raylan’s back, or Boyd’s lip or eye. All their blood mingled together--_ _

__“Boyd,” Raylan said and Boyd looked at him. “What did I say?”_ _

__Boyd blinked very slowly. “What?”_ _

__“You said I said something else to you. When-when I was hitting you when... are you all right?” Raylan’s voice was soft, tentative and afraid. He looked like all he wanted was to roll over and get up and go to him._ _

__Boyd blinked again. “My head aches something fierce. It’s not...it usually goes away and I can think again. But I--what were we talking about?”_ _

__“Come here,” Raylan said, urgently. Boyd frowned deeply. Something was wrong. Raylan wriggled, wincing, and moved over on the mattress. “Come over here,” he said again._ _

__Boyd moved slowly across the small space and laid down next to Raylan, pulling in close, but careful not to touch his back. It had been so torn up and red._ _

__“Don’t worry about what I said,” Raylan told him. His head was turned to face Boyd and his eyes looked very large in his face. He’d grown thinner, visibly thinner in just a few days. “Just relax. Try to sleep again.”_ _

__Boyd closed his eyes. He did worry about what Raylan said, because that was what they’d been talking about. How could it have just slipped right out of his head?_ _

__“You said I didn’t get to do what I did. You said that to me. You said, not after I looked at you that way.” He opened his eyes and smiled. “Oh, Raylan.” He touched his face._ _

__Raylan was looking down, but he glanced up and smiled when Boyd said that. “I remember thinking that, over and over, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t even know then, what I was so mad about.”_ _

__“I knew you didn’t give two shits for that poor girl.” Boyd felt his grip tightening again. He knew the past, like he knew Raylan. All that was sure. “Tell me, how did I look at you?”_ _

__Raylan’s smile was small and soft. “Like you wanted something, but didn’t know how to ask for it.”_ _

__“I didn’t think you would ever give it to me,” Boyd told him._ _

__Raylan shook his head, making a face when the muscles in his neck tweaked his sensitive skin. “I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have given it to you anyway.” He looked sorry about that._ _

__“Oh, Raylan,” Boyd said again. “I knew that.” He bowed his head a little, tilting it towards him, and, he wasn’t looking for it, but Raylan leaned in, only slightly, and pressed his lips to Boyd’s forehead gently, and kept them there. Boyd closed his eyes and said, “He’s destroying me.”_ _

__“No, he isn’t,” Raylan lips moved against Boyd’s skin as he spoke. “Don’t think about it. It won’t help.”_ _

__“Soon, I won’t think of anything at--”_ _

__“Shh,” Raylan said. Boyd searched for his hand, finding it open and waiting for him at his side. “We’re in the woods, Boyd. Climbing up the mountainside. And we’re leaving everything behind. And I’ve got your jacket and, if you tell me right now, I’ll believe you.”_ _

__“I can’t--” Boyd choked on the words. He could have, even months before, he could have told him that, even when he was with Ava. It was different, how he felt for them, different from each other, but so strong. “Not now.”_ _

__“But we’re not here,” Raylan said. “We’re up the mountain. We left it behind.” He kissed Boyd’s forehead again and Boyd lifted his head because he knew Raylan wanted him to._ _

__He let their lips brush and Raylan groaned because he wanted to move closer, but his back was a nightmare. Boyd let Raylan kiss his lips open and let their tongues slide together and they breathed the same breath._ _

__Boyd thought after that, he hoped, just the kiss would be enough for now and for a long time perhaps._ _


	6. Chapter 6

Raylan and Boyd slept through the next week. Ava came and went, bringing them food and helping to change Raylan's bandages, all with a quiet reserve that Raylan didn't like at all. Boyd didn't seem to notice, though for the first few days, when he wasn't sleeping, he seemed so distant and his words hesitant.

Ava caught them a few times next to each other, sleeping, or talking softly. And when she entered, Raylan would move discreetly away from Boyd, who would turn away from her, as if by reflex. Raylan hated to see the hurt, but resigned expression on her face, but he didn't know what to say, or how to say it, especially with Boyd there.

She brought Boyd a book, smuggled in under the food tray. It was one of those old science fiction ones he used to read a lot in high school. Ava said, “I know you picked these back up a little while ago.” She told Raylan, “They was with some of the stuff we took from Bo’s house some months back. He read ‘em all front to back again, but I--couldn’t get my hands on anything else.” She turned back to Boyd. “You left this one in the office drawer.”

He tried, Raylan could see him trying to smile at Ava, and said, “Thanks, honey.”

He never touched it. 

He slept so much, complaining of an ache in his head, that he would hardly do anything. Even after Raylan’s back began to heal and he could sit up for a bit, lean it against the wall, he would still sleep through half the day and be woken by dreams through the night. He refused to tell Raylan what they were about, though he hardly had to guess, saying, “Won’t lie about what happens outside, but I’ll keep my thoughts and my dreams to myself, okay, Raylan?”

Raylan didn’t push.

They talked about the past more than they ever had since Raylan returned to Kentucky. It was mostly Raylan trying to come up with things to say to him, since the silence began to drag on so long.

Boyd would tell him things about the Army sometimes, because it had grown so cold outside and that was the only place he'd ever been to that was always warm. That got him on Colt a little and then more of what transpired between him and Tim and Rachel, though he’d stuttered through it a little before he just clammed up all together and Raylan wondered if he’d forgotten some of that too. 

He never asked. It was fine. Sometimes Raylan would just say out of the blue, “You’re all right, Boyd,” and Boyd would laugh at him bitterly, but also, draw closer to him and that made Raylan, at least, feel better. 

He didn’t really understand why it was now that his feelings for Boyd had resurfaced with such a ferocity. Well, it probably had to do with them being in this situation together, that much was obvious. 

But he was also much older now than the last time he’d spent so much time with Boyd, had seen him so vulnerable. He remembered the things he was feeling now as things he’d felt before and had no words for, or had pushed down, or let become subsumed by his growing numbness and detachment as his family fell apart and his world narrowed to the mine. 

The mine and Boyd.

He had let himself forget what it was he’d felt, but he remembered now and things made a lot more sense than they had for a long time. At least in regards to Boyd. Things like why he couldn’t leave Harlan alone once he went back there and saw him, and why he’d been so hell bent on being the person who took him down, who brought him in. It hadn’t ever been any kind of revenge or grudge, it had always been just another way to be closer and a good way to disguise what was really between them, what had always been there.

Raylan just didn’t know how to tell him about it. 

He thought of the time he’d told Winona that he loved her, could admit to himself that he hadn’t ever stopped, and she’d smiled at him like he was some kind of dumb puppy and said, “Of course. Now what?”

He didn’t want that again. It had felt strange, off putting, because he really hadn’t thought past that moment at all. He wondered if Boyd felt the way she had and Raylan was just the one who was always one step behind. He thought maybe the kiss they had shared after the last time he’d come off of the Breath was enough to tell Boyd how his feelings had changed, or how he’d come to understand them.

He watched Boyd sleep and thought of all these things and felt himself growing restless underneath his abject hopelessness. He couldn’t do anything about any of it. Who knew if they would live out the month or the week, with the way Johnny had been going at them. He thought of that and wondered how he could wait at all to tell Boyd what he’d uncovered, if they only had so much time.

He gingerly stretched his arm across the space to pick up the book that Ava had left, that Boyd hadn't touched, and opened it up. He didn’t want to think about any of it anymore. So, he read about robots.

He was still reading when Ava came in. Boyd didn’t even stir anymore at the sound of the sliding door, but Raylan looked up from his book and offered her a smile.

“Hey,” she said and her eyes were tired. 

“You closed the bar up tonight?” he asked her, keeping his voice low so as not to disturb Boyd.

She nodded, lingering in the doorway, her eyes passing between he and Boyd.

Raylan patted the mattress next to him. “Come sit with me,” he said. “He ain’t after you for anything else?”

Ava shook her head and slowly sank down beside him. “He’s with his girl tonight, because I won’t let him touch me. Not--not after that display--” She broke off and turned to Boyd, who was still asleep, curled up on himself across the small space.

“You let him before?” He tried not to sound judgemental. He just wanted to understand.

She closed her eyes. “At first, I was so scared of what he’d do. I saw what he’d done to Boyd, how--how broken he was. I didn’t know if he’d give that shit to me too, or send me back. Now I know. I know what I’m here for. To watch. He won’t give it to me unless he has to, or unless I really piss him off. He’s-he’s not really--he doesn’t really _like_ it. He’s just so twisted up about Boyd. I used to not understand, how he could be so filled with hate,” she laughs. “Another lesson learned from Johnny Crowder.”

Raylan took her hand. They were speaking softly, trying not to disturb Boyd and their hushed tones and their closeness, made the conversation feel intimate in a way he hadn’t been with Ava in a long time. She looked down as he twined their fingers together and squeezed gently.

“I was real surprised, you know,” she said, so quietly, “what he said, about you and Boyd. That he knew, everybody knew. First I heard of it, and really believed, it was you saying it to me--that he loved you.”

He tried for a smile and it fell a little short, so he said, “It makes sense that you were, what with things being so strained between us since I came back to Kentucky.”

She huffed a short laugh. “Strained might be the understatement of the year. You picking things up from him?” she asked, jerking her thumb in Boyd’s direction.

Raylan really did smile now. He told her, “Don’t fault him for not telling you, Ava. We both thought what’s...between us, I guess, was dead and buried a long time ago. Truth be told, I wasn’t even sure I ever had it in me. I just knew--about him, I mean. Before I left Harlan, the fact that he loved me was what made it all bearable. In those days, I thought I couldn’t love anything--I just didn’t know how I could get past all that pain and misery.”

He looked at Boyd. “That’s how he’s feeling. I can see it, feel it on him, and he told me so himself. Ava, if there’s anything I can do to help him through this, or with this, as long as I’m able, I’m going to. Because that’s what he did for me.”

Ava was frowning at him, not like she was upset, but like she wasn’t quite sure she understood him.

He started shaking his head. “I don’t know, Ava. I don’t know what it is about now that’s put it front and center for me finally, but I really love him. I don’t know what’s going to happen, with me and him or you and him, or if we’re going to make it. All I know is that after this, if there is an after, I’m not walking away again.”

“Is that what you did before?” she asked. Her eyes looked very large in her face and he’d long ago stopped trying to figure out how to make her feel better.

“I’m not sure about that either,” he replied honestly. “W-we never talked about it. I knew how he felt. It was obvious in how he looked at me, things he said, but not outrightly, the things he did too.”

“What did he do?”

Raylan remembered the night in Boyd’s truck. He remembered Boyd pushing him first out of the black every goddamn day, the drinks he’d buy them both because he knew Raylan was saving. He remembered the forced smiles when Raylan would talk about leaving.

“He helped me.”

There were more tears in Ava’s eyes. He really hadn’t meant to put them there.

“Raylan,” she said and the tears started to roll. “I don’t care anymore what happens to me, or to him and me, I just want him to be...I’m just so scared for him. Even back in the days that I hated him, I've never seen him this way.”

Raylan reached up and pulled her gently closer to him, letting her lean her head on his shoulder.

“It’s like he’s lost something,” she said. “Something--I don’t know what it is, but it’s _important_. You have to help him get it back. I’ve asked him so many times what to do. I think we could get out, but--”

“What about when you’re alone with Johnny?” Raylan asked. He’d been wondering.

“You mean how come I ain’t shot him like I did Bowman?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it” she replied. “He’s not so smart as Boyd, but he sure as hell smarter than Bowman was. He doesn’t let his guard down a lot, even with me.”

Raylan frowned. “What about the shit? Do you know where he keeps it?”

She shook her head. “No. Sometimes I think he keeps it on him, but walks away to get it out. He always goes in a different direction.”

“That’s a level of deviousness I didn’t think he was capable of,” Raylan murmured. His hand had come to rest on her leg and as she relaxed, he began to move his fingers across the fabric of her jeans. 

She sighed and put her hand over his, stilling him, but grasping tight enough he knew she was all right with it. “He’s just full of surprises these days,” he mumbled sadly and they didn’t speak for a while after that. 

He let her fall asleep on him.

He wasn’t sure how long the silence stretched before Boyd stirred. He turned and looked at them sitting together, Ava sleeping, breathing softly. He didn’t look surprised. He must have been half awake for at least part of their conversation.

“We can’t get out, Raylan,” Boyd said, voice thick with exhaustion. He looked hardly rested at all. “I told you. There ain’t no place we can get to that they wouldn’t find us. Your people, my people, Detroit. They’ll kill us.” Raylan couldn’t believe the defeat in his tone. He hadn’t even bothered to sit up.

“Don’t you think that might be better?”

Boyd turned away again. “I can’t think anymore, Raylan. My head just aches and aches.”

Raylan went back to his reading. He read about the Second Law of Robotics--a robot must obey orders--and he refused to put the book down.

It was a week later that Jimmy came for him. “He wants you, Marshal.” Raylan stood. He didn’t want to be dragged in there.

Boyd got up with him, looking panicked. 

“You too,” the boy added, never looking at Boyd.

“Raylan,” Boyd said softly, but urgently as they walked. “Raylan, I can’t believe--I forgot to ask you.”

Raylan glanced at him sideways. He hadn’t sounded so interested in anything in days. He’d been listless, quiet, almost slow. “What is it?”

“Where do you want to be?” he asked desperately. His hands reached for Raylan, but fell short of grasping at him. He glanced at Jimmy and his lips thinned. Something hard was coming back into his expression, but it faded when he looked back at Raylan. His eyes were wide, raw with uncertainty. “Is the truck okay?”

Raylan pulled him close in the hallway to the front of the bar. He thought, screw Jimmy, and he pressed his lips to Boyd’s forehead. “It’s perfect. I’d forgotten it--Boyd, I forgot so much about you and me. Will you--” he almost didn’t say it. “Tell me you love me. Remind me. I don’t care if it ain’t true now. Tell me like you did then.”

Boyd looked up at him. Raylan can see him pull strength from somewhere hidden. He straightened and his eyes hardened again, determined. “Okay, Raylan,” he said. “I will.”

There was no one in the front but Johnny and Ava, who looked as though she fought tooth and nail to be there. She glanced at Boyd and her jaw jutted, as though she didn’t like the look of him at all. Raylan agreed. He looked frail. It would be easy for anyone to see he wasn’t at the top of his game.

Johnny had a hard expression on his face as well. He needed something from them now.

When he looked at Boyd walking in, he scowled quickly, turning to Jimmy. “You been feeding him, ain’t you?”

Jimmy sneered. “Ain’t my fault he don’t eat. I give ‘em the fucking food.”

Johnny rounded on Ava. “I can’t believe you let him go like that. I know how much you’re in there with them. You let him fucking starve himself?”

Ava’s eyes were wide and frightened. “He eats,” she said defensively. “You think I’d watch him starve? He’s sick, Johnny, and it’s goddamn cold outside. What did you expect?”

Boyd said nothing.

Johnny shook his head impatiently. “It’s too late now.” He turned to Boyd and asked him directly, “You ain’t gonna pass out are you?”

“I shouldn’t think so,” he answered calmly. His voice didn’t crack at all.

“Because if you falter, cousin, it’ll be him that takes the fall.” Johnny gestures at Raylan.

“I understand that, cousin.” He spit the word at Johnny and Raylan was glad to see the fire back in his eyes. He walked further into the room, just abreast of where Raylan stood.

“Ava, pour me a bourbon.” Johnny demanded, without a glance at her.

She waited until he looked her way to move, but she didn’t make him ask again. He walked to the bar, dropped a pile of white powder into the drink, and swirled the brown liquid in the glass for a moment before he held it out to Raylan. “Drink it,” he ordered.

Raylan stared at him. It was just another show of power, Raylan knew that. He knew too that there was no way he could refuse. But still, he balked. “Why not just tell me what you want me to do, Johnny?” he asked quietly, through gritted teeth. “You think I won’t do it? With what you’ve got held over us?”

Johnny smirked. “You might hesitate,” he said. He thrust the drink into Raylan’s hand. “I know you won’t with this.” His smirk grew more sly and he cast his eyes at Boyd. “And,” he said, “he fucking hates it.”

Raylan wanted to spit in his face.

He took the glass though, and held it up. Boyd was watching with eyes that had grown distant, withdrawn. Raylan looked at him for a long moment, glass raised. “Don’t you try to spare me a thing, Boyd. It’s better I do what he wants and don’t remember it, ‘stead of you taking it up for no goddamn reason.”

“Drink it,” Johnny said.

“Promise me,” Raylan insisted. “I’ll fucking do it and I swear I won’t ask you to tell me if you don’t want to. Just--”

“I promise,” Boyd told him. His hands were shaking.

Raylan raised the glass to his lips and downed it all at once. 

It was bitter on the back end but it faded into a strange sweetness that leaves his mouth dry. He opens his eyes and sees Boyd staring at him intently, sadness and despair in his expression. He tries to smile and finds it comes easy. “Don’t do that,” he murmurs. “It’s okay.”

Boyd starts to shake his head. Raylan frowns because he was feeling bad before, he thinks, but now he’s feeling better. Things seem all right. There’s a lightness in his head that’s lifting him up. He smiles at Boyd again.

Johnny calls his name and he turns. Johnny’s got his glock. He’s holding it out to him. “Take it,” he says.

Raylan smiles and does. It feels right in his hand, easy.

“You’re gonna kill me another man, Raylan. How does that sound?” 

“Good,” he says. He can’t think why it wouldn’t be good. He looks back at Boyd. He says, “Easy.”

 

Boyd thought for a moment, a good long one, that Johnny was going to tell Raylan to kill him.

For much of the space of that long moment, he welcomed it. It would be easy, like Raylan said. So much easier.

But Johnny only said, “Raylan, do you remember the way up to the high hills, where you was chasing after Drew Thompson ‘fore everyone figured out he was Shelby? Up where your mama’s kin lives?”

Raylan smiled. “Sure.”

“I want you to go up there, Raylan,” Johnny said, glancing at Boyd, like he might not understand he was supposed to be paying attention too. “It’s a mission, okay? There’s a man up there, claiming kin like you, hiding out there. His name is Dwayne Crowley. He lost an eye recently, so he’ll have a patch. That’s how you’ll know him. The mission is to kill him. Do you understand?”

Boyd watched something shift in Raylan as he absorbed the words. He stood straighter and his eyes seemed almost clear. No wonder no one at the prison had realized what was going down. Like this, Raylan would pass for sober.

“Yeah,” Raylan answered Johnny. “I’m gonna go kill him.”

“Kill who?”

“Dwayne Crowley. Up in the hills.”

“Boyd is gonna go with you,” Johnny added to a nod of Raylan’s head. “Boyd is gonna make sure everything goes easy, like you said.” Johnny was looking at Boyd now. Boyd looked right back. Johnny laid a set of keys on the table between them. Boyd stepped forward and reached down to take them.

“That’s right, Raylan. I’m going to help you.”

Boyd would be there to remind him, but he wouldn’t have to say much other than the mission and what to do next and Raylan would act. Like Johnny said, he wouldn’t hesitate.

Raylan always did prefer a clear goal. 

“Okay, Boyd.”

Boyd clenched his jaw. “Let’s go.”

Raylan followed him out the door.

 

They were on the road when Boyd asked Raylan, “Do you have a weapon stash anywhere in this county, Raylan?”

“Arlo had a trunk he kept locked in the basement. I always thought there was guns in there,” he answered immediately.

Boyd grimaced and shook his head, keeping his eyes on the road. “I cleaned them out months ago. He told me where they were when he was inside.”

Raylan didn’t reply and Boyd shook himself for expecting him to. Raylan didn’t care about that shit right now. He didn’t know about it.

“Anything else?”

Raylan blinked slowly. 

It hadn’t been so long since he’d been running things, but there was no one Boyd could trust to give him anything right now. He sighed and muttered to himself, “Who do we know with some goddamn firepower?”

“Constable Bob’s got a bunch of guns,” Raylan said. He looked over at Boyd and smiled languidly.

Boyd frowned. “Bob Sweeney?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit,” Boyd sighed again. They were gonna have to track him down. Boyd wasn’t going to go all the way up there again unarmed. “Do you know where he is?”

Raylan replied, “If today is Monday or Friday, he’s at Arlo’s.”

Boyd, unfortunately, had to think about it for a minute before he finally decided it must be Monday. The bar had been loud the night before last and very quiet through yesterday. “Well, let’s go see.”

When they arrived at Arlo’s, Boyd saw how the house had fallen into disrepair. It had always been old, but it had been several months, Boyd knew, since Raylan had been able to come down to fix it up.

Some windows had been broken, surely from kids or the desperate coming in to steal copper wire from the walls. Bob’s tan Gremlin was parked in the driveway.

“Why does he keep coming if you ain’t even trying to sell anymore?” Boyd asked.

“Keeps him busy,” Raylan said in an offhand way that Boyd might have thought he meant as an insult, if he’d had any capacity to cause verbal injury in that moment.

Boyd thought about it and nodded to himself. Now that Shelby was out of office, the Sheriff worked for the men on Clover Hill and sometimes Johnny if he could scrape up enough for a payoff. Bob Sweeney was the Constable of the town of Harlan, inside of which Raylan’s family’s property only just fell. He’d concern himself with petty theft and being an overgrown security guard if it meant those men wouldn’t shoot him and dump his body for getting in the way.

Bob came out of the house as Boyd cut the engine.

“Come on,” Boyd said heavily, pulling at the door handle. “Let’s ask nice first, huh?”

Raylan’s eyes were steady ahead. “Sure, Boyd.”

“And let me do the talkin’ for now,” he added. Raylan didn’t respond except to smile. 

The glock was tucked into the back of his jeans. Boyd hoped it didn’t slip down anywhere with all the weight he’d lost.

“Raylan?” Bob was asking. “Oh, Jesus, man, where you been? Everyone was out here--like a week ago--lookin’ for you.”

Raylan tilted his head, but didn’t respond right away. “I been...here,” he replied, hesitating. 

Boyd grimaced. “Hey, Bobby, can we just talk for a minute?” He turned and put his hand on Raylan’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Raylan,” he tried for calm. “Let me do the talking--”

“Don’t you let him tell you to shut up, Raylan,” Bob interjected immediately. “What the hell are you doing with him anyway?” The man’s expression was a mash of confusion and something like hurt, like even the act of Raylan being seen with Boyd had somehow betrayed him.

“Okay,” Raylan said, agreeable, but still clearly confused. Boyd hadn’t seen anyone on this shit receive conflicting orders before. He was actually glad now that they’d come here first. He needed to know what to do if Crowley figured out what was going on with Raylan before they could kill him. “He’s helping me. It’s gonna go easy.”

“What is?” Bob demanded.

“Raylan,” Boyd put in before he could answer. “I’d like you to draw your weapon on the good Constable and tell him to shut his goddamn mouth.”

Bob raised his hands for good measure.

“Alright, now. I’m gonna tell you a few things, Bobby and you’re going to listen and then we’ll be on our way.” Boyd sunk his hands into his back pockets. Raylan’s were steady on the gun, finger on the trigger. “I want you to shoot him, Raylan, right there in his leg if he speaks.” He didn’t ask for confirmation. He knew Raylan was listening.

“Nod if you understand, Bobby.”

He did, his eyes wide, but not quite fearful. Boyd remembered the beating he’d taken over Shelby for Nicky Augustine. Boyd was never quite sure how much respect to throw his way.

“Now, have you ever heard of a drug called Scopolamine, or the Devil’s Breath?” He almost smiled. “Nod or shake your head. Raylan’s gonna listen to me, because that’s what the shit he’s on right now does, okay? Or did you just realize that?”

Bob’s eyes had grown very wide. He nodded again.

“You heard about them lawmen in Shreveport, didn’t you?”

Another nod. He was looking at Raylan now like he’d turned into some kind of wild animal.

“I want you to know, Bobby, that I didn’t give Raylan this shit. You must’ve heard Johnny’s running things now. You must’ve heard some things about me lately.”

Bob opened his mouth, but closed it quick, remembering.

“Go ahead,” Boyd told him. “Raylan, he gets to speak now. Keep that gun on him, but don’t shoot unless he moves.”

“I heard you gave Johnny all your money. And that you went crazy, did some weird shit at the bar, lost your mind and you’re livin’ in a shack somewhere--or something.” Bob clearly didn’t know what to believe and he was still eyeing the glock, steady in Raylan’s hands.

“It’s a shed behind the bar, Bobby, and Raylan lives there with me now because Johnny drugged him up and told him to shoot a man incarcerated in a Federal prison.”

Bob raised his brows. “Shit.” 

“That’s right, Bobby. And you know what they do to lawmen in prison. They’ve got the evidence, all on camera, if he does any time-- _any_ time, Bobby--he’ll die there. Do you want him to die?”

“No,” Bob cried, his face wracked with guilt and anger. 

“Then you ain’t gonna tell anybody we were here today, are you?”

Bob shook his head. He opened his mouth again, this time for a question, but he glanced at Raylan and back at Boyd until Boyd said, “Ask it.”

“But, what are you doing h-helping Johnny? He sent Raylan out here all drugged up. Why are you with him?”

“To make sure he does as he’s bid. To help him if he needs. I’m here, Bobby, because the task is for me, not Raylan. If I don’t bring us both back from up in the high hills, with a dead body in tow, it’s Raylan will feel the hurt because of me.” 

Bob frowned at him. “Why do you care though?”

Boyd had to clamp down on the urge to smack him across his face just for insolence, or stupidity. “Didn’t you hear me say it’s just me and him in that shed, Bobby? Johnny has brought us both low--loath as I am to admit such a thing--he’s all I fucking have right now. So, I care very much whether or not he lives another day and if he’s in a world of hurt because of my actions.”

Bob was looking at him like he was the snake in the garden. Doubt and fear were written clearly and largely in his eyes.

“You don’t believe me? Ask Raylan. You should know, on this shit, he can’t lie.”

Bob tightened his lips, then asked, as if he had to force the words out, “Hey, Raylan, are you livin’ in a shed behind Johnny’s bar with Boyd these days?”

Raylan blinked and his gun wavered slightly, but he raised it right back up again, acclimating to the idea of speech while he followed Boyd’s orders. “Yeah,” he said.

“And you shot that man, inside the prison?”

Raylan frowned.

“He doesn’t remember that, Bobby, this shit--

But Raylan spoke over him, saying, “There was a bullet missing from the chamber. I checked when Boyd told me. I must have. Tim and Rachel came looking. No one said I hadn’t done it.”

Bob looked profoundly disturbed, both by the stilted way Raylan was speaking and the words that were coming out of his mouth. Still, he asked, “And you seen Johnny give Boyd that-that stuff?”

Raylan blinked slowly. 

“Be specific, asshole. He’s got to know what you mean.” Boyd turned to Raylan. “Did you witness Johnny giving me the Devil’s Breath?”

“Yes,” Raylan answered immediately. “I saw him blow it in your face.”

“What did he do?” Bob asked.

“He listened to Johnny. Then he listened to me.”

Boyd was losing his patience with the Constable and his failure to understand how to interrogate a drugged subject. “What did Johnny tell me to do, Raylan?” It really wasn’t that difficult.

“He told you to disarm me. It wasn’t hard ‘cause my head hurt so much, but you didn’t pull no punches. Then you dragged me across the floor and Johnny told you you wanted me. I felt your hard on and Ava was crying so Johnny told you just to come on me.” He paused for a brief moment, then added, “Then you did.”

Boyd glanced over at Bobby, but he was staring open-mouthed and blank-faced at Raylan. So Boyd asked, “What did you tell me to do?” He was actually rather curious. He wondered if what Raylan told him before would match up.

“I told you that you did so well and you seemed to like that--

“Why? Why did you bother?” The question fell from Boyd’s lips before he could stop it, before he remembered that Bobby was there.

“It felt right,” Raylan answered with no pretence at all. “I wanted to. And you were shaking and when I said that, you stopped and you smiled at me.”

Boyd wanted to turn away. Raylan had done that without being shown that it would help, without even speaking to Ava about what to do. 

“What else did you tell him to do?” It was Bob asking.

“Jimmy drove us to Ava’s house to clean up. We saw Boyd’s cuts. Johnny showed them to us. They were bad and Ava was worried, so I told him to clean up and when I was worried he was gonna scrub so hard he’d open the healed ones up again, I got in too, and helped him. When we got out I told him to sit still and that the peroxide didn’t hurt him none. And I was so hungry and tired I was seeing stars, so I told him to lay down with me. But Jimmy didn’t like that--”

Bob interrupts him with another question. “What cuts are you talking about?”

“I saw them,” Raylan replied. “Johnny said he told Boyd when he’d breathed the Devil’s Breath that there was a demon inside him and gave him a knife to cut it out. He drew red lines with the point of that knife. They,” he swallowed, like something was caught in his throat. “They’re kind of beautiful.”

“Okay, Raylan,” Boyd said softly. “That’s good.” He turned back to Bobby and rolled up his sleeves to reveal the bandages there, changed freshly just the day before. “Well, now that might be the most humiliating shit anyone could possibly hear about me, son. Do you believe me or do I have to tear open these bandages?”

“No,” Bob said quickly, “I mean, no, don’t do that. I believe you. Shit,” he breathed. “Shit--fuck. I-I’m so sorry, man. Do you--what--how can I help you, Boyd?”

Boyd smiled but he didn’t tell Raylan to lower the weapon. “I need you to give me a gun, Bobby.”

 

Boyd parked the truck at the bottom of the hill and bid Raylan get out. He tucked Bob’s M9 into his pocket, along with his hands and said, “Come on,” a little absently, waving until Raylan caught up with him.

As they walked, Boyd couldn’t help but glance over at Raylan, who look as though he was concentrating very hard on walking. His eyes were on the ground, his brows knit together. Boyd figured he was probably projecting a little, but he thought Raylan looked sad as well and he didn’t want him to be that way if he could help it.

“Raylan,” he said softly and Raylan looked up at him. They kept walking as Boyd told him, “Raylan, I want you to believe that I love you.”

Raylan’s smile spread wide at that and Boyd reached out to take his hand, knowing Raylan wouldn’t make such a move himself right now.

“Okay, Boyd,” he replied.

He watched Boyd now, who ended up being the one keeping his eyes down, until they got close enough to the top of the mountain that he thought they should let go.

“Be ready to draw your weapon, Raylan,” Boyd murmured. “On my order. And don’t speak unless I tell you.”

Raylan nodded, eyes wide and almost hyper-aware as they continued their climb.

Boyd became more and more concerned as they continued to walk that they hadn’t run into anyone yet. These people knew their woods, knew when strangers were in them. They should have come across someone. They should have been jumped in the trees.

Boyd took out Bobby’s gun. He nodded at Raylan to do the same and was pleased when the motions sufficed to get his point across so they didn’t have to speak.

Boyd had been hooded on his way up this mountain the first time, but he hadn’t on the walk back down. He figured he knew the way to the small building they’d been held in, but he wasn’t sure if they’d find any people there. He knew these hill folk spread out all over their land, tucking cabins and storage all over the place, squirreling things away.

They passed the deserted shed Boyd was familiar with and kept walking up, coming eventually to a larger cabin with a big porch upon which there was a small crowd gathered. There was an argument afoot, a shouting match with much grumbling and cursing, so no one heard Boyd and Raylan approach.

When someone did finally turn, see them, and yell something at them, about eight different guns were drawn, raised, and pointed in their direction. Boyd was very glad he’d had them draw so far down the mountain.

“Shit, it’s these two motherfuckers,” the man Boyd remembered was called Cope said.

Mary was standing next to him and just behind them there was another man, maybe just a few years shy of Boyd and Raylan, gagged and bound to a chair. He was also blindfolded with a dirty bandana, but underneath that Boyd could see that dark material and thin string of an eyepatch.

Mary looked at them for a long moment and then asked, "What are you doing here, Raylan Givens?"

Raylan looked at the man tied to the chair. "I'm on a mission," he told her. "I'm--"

"Is that Dwayne Crowley?" Boyd asked quickly. He thought he'd hear one of the other say his name and Raylan needed to know it if he was going to pass.

Mary glared at him. Cope scowled. "It is," she answered.

"I think you're in luck then," Boyd replied then. "Because it seems to me you got a problem. A problem that this man here is claiming kin with you, but he's about to bring real trouble your way."

"And you're saying you ain't the trouble?" A man near near the front of the small crowd asked. 

Neither Mary nor Cope reacted in any way that gave Boyd an indication he should answer or stop talking, so he continued, "Now, you don't want to kill him here, that'll bring down the law or his friends out of town, or both. But he's got to get gone and he's got to stay that way, yes?"

Cope gave him a look like he should hurry it up.

"Raylan's here for him. Let him take Dwayne off your hands and you won't be able to tell anybody what happened to him. But I can guarantee he won't be coming back."

Cope side-eyed Raylan, who hadn't moved much during that speech. Mary was looking at him too. Boyd was almost sure she could tell something was wrong with him. "I don't know," Cope said.

Boyd took a breath. He wasn't sure it worked this way, but he had to try. "Raylan can claim kin with you too, so you won't be giving him over to an...outsider--"

"But he's the law," that skinny ginger kid--Boyd had forgotten his name--cried.

"He ain't here for the law," Boyd said. "You think _I'm_ working with the Marshals? He lost his badge. He's here--"

"Why ain't he speaking for himself?" Mary asked calmly. Boyd heard a few people grumble agreements behind her.

Boyd knew it was lost then, any chance they had of getting out of there without them knowing. "Raylan," he said quietly, "Answer your cousin's questions." He turned to Mary, "Ask him whatever you want." 

He made sure they all saw him tighten his grip on the M9. He heard two or three loads being racked in.

"What are you here for, Raylan?" she asked directly.

"Dwayne Crowley," Raylan answered and then smiled. It was the kind of smile, a little too wide and vacant, that made it extremely obvious he wasn't himself.

Boyd could almost feel the attitude of the crowd surge from alerted caution to almost panicked confusion and fear. Mary held a hand up as questions of "what the fuck" and "what's wrong with him," echoed behind her back.

They all shut up pretty quick.

Boyd was impressed, though crestfallen by her next question. "What are you on, honey?"

"Scopalamine," Raylan told her. "People call it the Devil's Breath."

"You addicted?"

"No."

"You take it yourself?"

"No."

She scowled. "He give it to you?"

Raylan looked at her and frowned.

"Raylan, did I give you the Breath?" She wasn't being specific enough.

"No," Raylan said, turning to him.

"Tell her then," Boyd said, nodding to her.

"Boyd didn't give it to me," he told her.

"Who did?"

"Johnny Crowder."

Mary glared at Boyd. "That why you're here?"

Boyd grimaced. "It's a long story."

She looked back at Raylan. "Am I right in thinking he don't just answer questions on this Breath?"

"Raylan," Boyd said in answer. "In five seconds, take two steps backward."

He was certain everyone counted with him silently and when Raylan obliged, Cope blew out a whistle. "That man there is a goddamn loaded weapon."

Boyd shot a pleading look at Mary. "We're just here for Dwayne, I swear to you, ma'am. I can tell you, as far as I'm concerned, we won't be climbing up your mountain again if we get our hands on that man right there."

"Seems to me your concern don't go that far, Mr. Crowder. There ain't no guarantee here that you takin' him won't bring more trouble to our doorstep, law and outlaw alike."

"Well, as I said, if you put him in our hands, that's all the stories you'll have to tell. The law won't find him, if you're careful, they won't find any evidence either. And his boys," Boyd shot a look to two men standing behind him in attire clearly not fit for backwoods living, "will be on their way hollering all the livelong day who took him away from you."

Mary was tight-lipped. She clearly did not like this at all.

Boyd took one last shot at it. “If Raylan could say anything other than what I tell him to right now, I know, Mary, that he’d tell you this is what you have to do.”

She straightened her back and lifted her chin at him. Cope put in, “You said Johnny Crowder put you on this path. What’s to stop him from sending other folks our way, causin’ us strife?”

“You are,” Boyd replied. “Johnny needed Raylan for this task. I think it’s why--one of the reasons--why he hasn’t killed him yet. And that’s because he knew you wouldn’t parley with no one else. I told him before how it was Raylan saved my life from you and yours when I was so misguided as to come up here looking for Drew. I know that he could do that on account of his mother--your kin.”

“What will happen to him,” Mary glanced at Boyd, “to you, if he doesn’t...take Dwayne with him?”

“Mary, he will do it, or you’ll kill him trying. If I tell him to forget it--which I could--Johnny will tell him to hurt himself or kill himself and it will be my fault.” When she frowned at him in disbelief, he tossed out an impatient huff and said, “Raylan, hand me your gun and turn around.”

Boyd stepped slowly sideways and took the weapon from Raylan’s grasp. When he turned, Boyd told him, “Lift up the back of your shirt.”

There was a collective, resounding, hiss of sympathy.

“Johnny told Raylan that the giant spider he saw in the corner--this shit gives you hallucinations too, by the way--was on his back and to use his belt to knock it off him. He told him it was there twenty-six times. I counted them. He did that,” Boyd was staring at Mary intensely now, “Mary, he did that because I got the law off Raylan’s tail in Harlan, but I couldn’t get them all the way of Johnny. Mary,” he put all that he could into the words, “it was _my fault_. You have a problem that I can fix for you and Raylan will stay whole. _Please,_.”

“Take him,” she said and no one gainsaid her.

“Raylan,” Boyd said, but he was already moving, apparently listening to the order from Mary.

She stopped him with a murmured, “Wait,” as he was about to pass her, and she put her hand to his face, looking sadly into his darkened eyes. “I’m sorry, child. I know of no mother who would want this for her son.”

Raylan said nothing, though Boyd could see him lean into the contact. She pushed a fallen strand of hair out of his eyes and said, “I’ll pray we never see each other again, Cousin Raylan.”


	7. Chapter 7

Boyd wasn't back in the bar for three seconds before Jimmy was patting him down. He was glad he'd thought to bury Bobby's gun right outside in Ava's flower beds, so at least he'd know where it was, even if he could never get at it again. He could, at least, tell her where to find it.

He looked for her, as Jimmy took the car keys from him and Raylan stood quietly by his side, and saw her behind the bar. She was standing very still. He frowned, but then Johnny started talking.

"Is it done?"

"Give him the thing in your pocket, Raylan,” Boyd said.

Raylan pulled out the eyepatch and handed it to Johnny.

"How was it done?" Johnny asked Boyd. 

"Had Raylan shoot him between the eyes with the glock. Then push him into the slurry pond."

Johnny smiled. "Easiest way to get rid of a body, 'round here, huh?" 

Jimmy pushed them both forward and Johnny retreated near the bar. There was an ugly frown on Jimmy’s face, like he couldn't stand to look at one other thing or he was going to throw up.

"It was closer than a mine shaft," Boyd replied, keeping his voice even. There were maybe three other people in the place and they were all Johnny's errand boys. He'd cleared it out, even though it was prime time, after six o'clock.

Jimmy took Raylan's weapon from his waistband. He didn't even turn at the contact.

"Ava, pour these boys a whiskey each," Johnny said, smiling at her in a strange, over-wide way. "They had an eventful day."

The immediacy and the soft, pleased, smile with which she moved to obey him turned Boyd's stomach and set his heart beating much too fast. "No," he whispered. He turned fast to Johnny, "N--what did you fucking do?" he demanded.

Johnny's eyes grew cold and hard. "Ava's always been my collateral on you, cousin. The hit on that man was real important, Boyd. If you didn't come through, you had to know there would be consequences."

"But I did," Boyd cried, perplexed. "Raylan just gave you the man’s goddamn eyepatch!”

Johnny shrugged, like it was nothing. “Well, I had to be prepared in the event that you didn't. And, I needed some assurance you weren't going to come bursting in here, get Raylan to attempt to shoot me in the head or somethin' fucking dumb like that. There's a paring knife just sitting in that sink right now. Ava, honey, pick up that knife."

Boyd's eyes were bulging. "Don't you dare--"

"And you'll do what to stop me?"

Boyd turned to her. “Ava, don’t you pick up that knife.”

She froze, wide-eyed. He could see there was a bruise on her wrist. She must have tried so hard to pull away. “Okay, baby,” she said quietly and Boyd made a sound like a wounded animal.

“Raylan, cover Boyd’s goddamn mouth,” Johnny ordered and Boyd didn’t have enough time to move before it was happening--Raylan’s palm came down unyieldingly across his face. “Break his arm if he tries to speak again.”

Boyd fell to his knees.

Johnny looked down at him disgustedly. “You’re gonna get them killed, asshole.”

Boyd kept his mouth shut. He would say more but he didn’t have a plan and he knew he needed one. 

He knew--even though he’d laid blame upon himself just that day to Mary--he knew now what Johnny was capable of and that he’d do whatever he damn well pleased. None of it would be Boyd’s fault. And Boyd wasn’t going to take it anymore.

“Go get a fucking gag,” Johnny told Jimmy. “Raylan, take him to the shed.”

Boyd tried to get away. He kept his eyes locked on Ava, on her soft, almost dream-like, smiling face, as he struggled against Raylan. But he lost his strength quickly, adrenaline fueled as it was. He was so tired and he knew he was sick and his wounds itched and chafed and drained him of everything he needed to get free. He went limp and let Raylan pull him into the shed.

A moment later Jimmy was in there too with a dirty rag. 

“Let me go, Raylan,” Boyd panted. Raylan did and Boyd surged upwards, finding the strength somewhere, and pushed Jimmy up against the wall. “You let him--how could you fucking let him do that, son?” He could barely get the words out through clenched teeth.

Jimmy’s eyes were full of anger and hurt and Boyd couldn’t even tell anymore. “You think I could stop him?”

“Fuck you,” Boyd growled pressing harder.

“He hasn’t touched her. He--” the boy faltered, “he didn’t make her do anything weird. I promise you, Boyd, I’m gonna watch over her.”

Boyd pushed off, disgusted. “You better, Jimmy. He thinks this is gonna keep me on the ground, he’s kidding himself. He made a mistake on this one, I am telling you right now.”

Jimmy said nothing, only giving him a dark look and holding up the gag.

Boyd jutted his jaw. “Let me tell him a few things first--”

“Get on with it then,” the boy said. “An’ if you tell him something Johnny ain’t gonna like, I’ll fucking tell him to ignore you.”

Boyd rolled his eyes. He turned to Raylan. He touched his face. “Remember, Raylan, I want you to believe that I love you. Jimmy’s gonna put that thing in my mouth so I can’t talk, but I want you to try to remember I said that. And--” he grimaced. He didn’t think any of this was going to work. “And we’re in the truck and we just made it out of the mine and you know that I love you because I showed you and I never asked you to stay. Okay?”

Raylan smiled. “Okay, Boyd.”

Boyd turned to Jimmy again. “If I find out she--”

Jimmy stuffed the rag in his mouth. “Shut up, Boyd,” he said stiffly.

He had a round of duct tape with him too that he wound around Boyd's mouth, keeping the rag in place, and used to bind his hands in front of him. He locked the door behind him.

Raylan stared at Boyd for about half a minute before he started seeing things.

His eyes flicked fast into the corners and along that walls and ceilings, behind the stacked boxes and under the mattress on the floor. When he started jumping every once in awhile, as if startled, eyes turning fearful and wild, Boyd moved slowly closer to him.

He tried to make soothing sounds, but all he could do with the gag in his mouth was breathe deeply and steadily. He pushed Raylan against the wall, pressing against him and raising his bound hands up to grasp loosely at his shirt. He pulled him down to sit on the mattress and he breathed.

When Raylan tried to push him away, grunting something like a denial, or an admission of fear, rising terror, Boyd just held on. He lifted his hands to the space under Raylan’s chin and he twisted his palm to clasp, warm, around Raylan’s neck. And he breathed.

Raylan didn't speak and Boyd couldn't, so he just sat there, curling his fingers around the hair at the back of Raylan's neck, and he let his mind roll back to a time when he couldn't think of a thing he wanted more than to be this close to Raylan, to lie with him a whole night through and not speak.

He leaned his forehead onto Raylan's shoulder, which would shake every so often, as a new terror presented itself to him, and keep Boyd from slipping into slumber.

No one came in, no one passed by the door. No food or drink was left for them. Raylan shook and Raylan moaned and Boyd could only breathe with him and press their cheeks together.

Hours later, the door opened and Jimmy came through, carrying a bleary-eyed Ava. Boyd turned fast and their eyes met across the cramped room. She gasped a barely audible curse and pushed off Jimmy until he set her down a few steps into the room.

“Ava,” Jimmy said as she nearly stumbled away from him. Her head must have been aching fiercely.

Her eyes flashed at floor, like it was what she was angry at, and she growled, “Get out, Jimmy. Leave us alone.”

Boyd tried to stand but his legs had cramped up and were moving slowly. She all but collapsed next to him, laying a shaking hand on his shoulder then Raylan’s. Raylan’s eyes shot open and he pushed back hard, knocking his head on the wall, to get away from her.

She frowned. “He’s still under?” Boyd couldn’t say anything. He put his hands on her leg and squeezed. He wanted so badly to tell her how sorry he was, about how he’d been to her, about everything. She reached both hands now to brush the damp hair away from Raylan’s face. “You know me, honey,” she whispered to him, her voice rough. “Tell me my name.”

Raylan blinked at her. “Ava,” he said, his voice cracked and breaking from disuse and the fever of the Breath. Boyd had always thought it was worse when ingested. The effects were less, but they lasted longer, lingering like a sickness.

“Good,” she soothed. “Now, tell me his name.”

Raylan looked to Boyd. He almost smiled. “Boyd.”

“That’s real good, Raylan. Everything’s fine now. Everything’s okay.” She closed her eyes and swayed a little. Boyd squeezed her leg harder. She blinked, and forced herself straight. “Everything’s okay.”

She looked to Boyd then, and raised her hands to pull at the tape around his head. She took it slow and she had to take frequent breaks. When she did pause, he couldn’t stop himself from dipping his head forward and leaning into her shoulder, her cheek, her mouth. What range of motion he had with his hands he drew on, trying to grasp at whatever he could of her.

He couldn’t stop thinking about what he might have lost.

After a long, painful, while, she finally got enough of it free or loose that he could spit out the filthy rag. He used his first free breaths just on her name, over and over again. Then he said, “I’m so sorry, Ava, I--”

She silenced him once again with a kiss. It wasn’t long and it tasted of blood from her mouth or his and of must and old alcohol off the rag, but he groaned into it. He was so sorry to have pushed her away.

She hushed him when he tried to tell her again. “Let’s get your hands free,” she murmured. There was a crease of pain between her brows. He nodded and they worked together to loosen and unwrap the stubborn silver tape.

“He thought you would tell Raylan to come get me,” she said.

He wasn’t sure if it was a question, but he nodded to that too and said, “I would have. Baby, I--”

“Not now,” she whispered desperately. “I can’t think for apologies, Boyd, I--I don’t think you need to. I know,” she said and looked up at him. “I know now.”

He felt the words like a blow. “I never wanted that for you.”

“I know that, too,” she said. There were tears in her eyes and now his hands were free. “My head just hurts so much, baby.”

“Come here,” he told her and wrapped her up in his arms. He held her as she began to sob. 

He looked over to Raylan, who was watching them almost curiously, as if he couldn’t quite understand what he was seeing. When his eyes darted again to the corner, Boyd said, “Remember, Raylan, we’re in my truck. With the stars above our heads and the mine far below us and I love you so much and you know that.”

Raylan smiled and all his limbs loosened up. “Okay,” he murmured.

“Where are you, Raylan?”

“In the truck,” he said. “With you.”

“That’s right. Now you’re gonna fall asleep.”

Ava lifted her head from Boyd’s shoulder and blinked at him. He drew his hands back and forth soothingly across her waist. “You loved him,” she said in a tone that was not far from an accusation.

Boyd nodded. “I did, baby.”

She lifted her hands to cup either side of his face. “Don’t you now?”

Boyd closed his eyes. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t think these days. I thought--I don’t know what that means anymore, I don’t think. It’s not the same as it was.”

She smiled at him softly. “That don’t mean it ain’t there.”

Boyd looked over at Raylan, sleeping soundly now, just next to them. He shook his head. Raylan had told him years ago, he didn’t feel it, didn't know if he ever could. It didn’t matter what Boyd felt now. He turned away. He didn’t want to think about it.

A little while later, Jimmy came in with some food, refusing again to look at them. They ate and talked through as much as they could stomach of what happened. He told her about Bob and Mary and going back to the slurry pond where Lee Paxton had gotten her arrested. Then he thought he ought to tell her what he’d learned, about being on the Breath, but his head started buzzing again, like it had a few days ago and he couldn’t think for a minute and then he couldn’t really remember what he’d wanted to say.

Ava didn’t notice. She was leaning heavily against him and a short while later, he heard her breathing drop into the even pace of sleep. Boyd felt restless though and didn’t follow her. His mind was going through the myriad ways they could not escape their prison, and circularly back to what he’d thought to tell her, tell someone, because he’d thought, just those moments ago, that it was so important. He forced himself to stay still for Ava, despite his rising anxiety. He wanted to hold her as long as she needed, as long as he could.

He didn’t know how long it had been when Raylan stirred, blinking his eyes open slowly. He looked at Boyd and then his eyes fell to Ava’s sleeping face, resting on the flat of Boyd’s chest. he frowned.

“Say something for me, Raylan,” Boyd said softly.

Raylan closed his eyes. "Boyd, I love you, okay?"

Boyd shook his head, almost absently, thinking that couldn't be true, not now, and he pushed his thoughts away from Raylan's confession. "I made you shoot that man, Raylan. I told you to. I did what Johnny wanted."

Raylan opened his eyes and frowned at Boyd, like he was the one not making sense. “You think that will make a difference?”

Boyd thought it probably should, this wasn’t the time nor the place to be dredging up the past in such a way and Raylan had always said he _couldn’t_. “Now?” he whispered hoarsely. “You’re gonna do this now?”

Raylan’s expression echoed Boyd’s sorrow. He reached out tentatively and drew shaking fingers across the line of Boyd’s face. “I’m real sorry, Boyd,” he said.

“I can’t, Raylan,” he said, and then the buzzing behind his eyes came back in full force and he blinked several times, tilting his head like maybe that would make it go away. He said again, “I can’t,” but couldn’t quite remember anymore what it was he couldn’t do. 

Raylan smiled and it was sad, but heartfelt. “It’s okay. I just wanted to tell you.”

Ava stirred slightly in her sleep and Raylan’s eyes fell to her. He frowned and asked, “Why is she sleeping here?”

Boyd saw little reason to keep it from him, or to beat around the bush. “Johnny gave her the Breath.”

“What?” Raylan cried, trying to sit up straighter. He groaned, muscles protesting and fell back against the wall. 

“He wanted her under in case we didn’t deliver and in case I had you try to shoot him on the way back in.”

“That’s insane,” Raylan protested. “You would have known he’d have his boys in there locked and loaded. He didn’t need to--”

“Well, I think he regrets it now. Ava said he wouldn’t look at her after she woke up.”

“Did he--” Raylan couldn’t complete the question, but Boyd knew what he was asking.

He shook his head. “She said Jimmy assured her, that he said he would know, he was making sure nothing like that happened. She said she checked herself, she thinks she’d know too, and that nothing happened.” Boyd’s eyes fell to the bruises around her wrists and forearms. Raylan looked at them for a long time too.

“Have you slept at all?” Raylan’s questions was infused with such open concern, Boyd wasn’t sure quite what to do with it. He was caught by Raylan’s intent stare, the honest emotion in his eyes.

He only shook his head.

“You must be so tired,” Raylan said then and reached out for Boyd’s hand, as though he couldn’t help himself. 

Boyd let him take it but he frowned down at it until Raylan asked him what was wrong. “You don’t have to do that,” he said quietly and as soon as the words left his mouth, they sounded wrong.

Raylan was looking at him strangely. “What do you mean?”

The thoughts in Boyd’s head were all a jumble and he knew things had happened--Raylan was acting so differently--but still, he found himself saying, “I remember you said you couldn’t...feel for me what I did, Raylan. I don’t want--” His speech became halting, like even his mouth didn’t want to speak the words. “You don’t need to act this way, just because things are so--I mean, you don’t have to because I don’t think I can really feel anything anymore…” He trailed off at that because he remembered feeling such relief, and some kind of rekindling in his heart, that Ava was safe. 

He wasn’t sure anymore what he meant to say to Raylan about his hand, or why it had seemed so important, but he didn’t say anything else because Raylan was staring at him again, with such concern and confusion it bordered on horror.

“Boyd,” he said, grasping even more tightly at his hand, “Boyd, I told you. I do feel it. Maybe it’s because of all this, but that doesn’t mean it ain’t real. I fucking love you, okay?”

Boyd wanted to ask him so badly when he’d said that, when he’d told him that he would assure him so emphatically, but he couldn't do it. He couldn’t remember and he thought that he should have been able to. He was much too afraid to admit that he’d forgotten so completely, that he was sure that it hadn’t happened.

So, he only said, “Oh,” like it was coming back to him, or like he might have missed it and just realized. And he forced a smile that turned true when he let it sink into him. Raylan did love him.

Maybe that would make things, at least some of them, okay again.

“Get some rest, Boyd,” Raylan said. 

Boyd closed his eyes, after checking on last time for the sincerity in Raylan’s wracked expression. His head was aching something fierce.

 

Raylan didn’t let go of Boyd’s hand for a long time. Even after he fell asleep, or after Ava woke and stirred under his arm that was laid across her. 

She blinked at him a frown creasing her brow. “Are you here?” she asked.

He smiled at her. “Yeah.”

“Good.” She looked over at Boyd who did not seem to be sleeping easily. “Raylan, I am so worried about him,” she said. “I knew it hurt you, but feeling it myself--he’s had it so much more. No wonder his head aches all the time.”

Raylan sighed, feeling his gut churn at the memory of Boyd’s almost blank expression of confusion, his fumbling attempt to hide that he’s completely forgotten what Raylan had told him only minutes before.

“We need to take care with him,” Raylan said and explained what had happened, and that Boyd had forgotten that other thing, weeks ago, but remembered it slowly, after he’d thought about it for so long. “He didn’t do that this time. He just--it was gone. I could tell.”

Ava twisted in Boyd’s embrace to look at Raylan directly, she pried her arms loose from him and wrapped them around Raylan’s neck. 

It was only when she began to hush him and croon softly that they’d look out for Boyd, that he’d be okay, that he realized he was crying.

 

Raylan woke again to the sound of Johnny growling, “Get up, Ava,” and the sudden absence of a warm body from beside him. He blinked his eyes blearily open to see Johnny standing over them, sneering, with Ava’s arm in his grip as he pulled her away. “All tangled up like a pile of dogs,” he said disgustedly. “Well, your bitch ain’t gonna be here for this, boys.”

“Johnny--” Ava cried, but he pushed her fast out the door and locked it behind him. She pounded on it, over and over, screaming, “What are you doing?” and cursing at him.

Boyd had woken with Raylan, startled, but Raylan could tell his head wasn’t in the fight yet, his brow was creased and he looked more afraid than pissed. “Raylan,” he murmured.

“Shut up,” Johnny said. He was pulling a bag of powder from his pocket.

“Raylan, I forgot to tell you something,” Boyd said anyway.

Raylan turned to him. “What is it?”

Boyd looked guilty and sad and terrified all together. His hands were shaking. “I can’t remember, I-I _forgot_ , Raylan.” He was so intent on what he’d forgotten that he didn’t even try to move away when Johnny came up on him, the power between his fingers again.

Raylan moved for him, surging up from the floor and raising a hand to Johnny’s back, but he turned around fast and got a right hook across Raylan’s jaw so hard he saw stars and then nothing for a moment.

When he came to, he felt Boyd leaning over him and he heard Johnny say, too softly, “That’s right, cousin. He’d dead. You killed him.”

Raylan ground out a “ _No_ ,” into the dirty floor where he’d fallen. He tried to get up. He turned and saw Boyd’s face, wracked with grief and guilt. His hands were shaking again.

“What are you gonna do now he’s dead, cousin?” Johnny said. “Ava’s gone too, remember? They shanked her in the prison showers, ‘cause they heard she was your woman.”

“She’s gone,” Boyd whispered his eyes, unseeing, still on Raylan as he pushed up onto his hands and knees. “Raylan.” There were tears streaming down his face.

The pounding on the door started up again.

“Fuck you, Johnny,” Raylan said through gritted teeth. “Why don’t you just kill us then? Get rid of us for real ‘stead of just in his head. He’s not even gonna remember it.”

“Sure as hell won’t if he kills himself,” Johnny replied. 

“Why don’t you just tell him to fucking do it then?” Raylan shouted. When Johnny hesitated, looking away, Raylan realized, “You don’t want his blood on your hands, do you? You want him to do it himself. Well, I got news for you, asshole, your plan's got a flaw. He ain’t gonna do shit unless you tell him to you fucking coward. Jesus Christ.”

Johnny backhanded him then, over Boyd’s unflinching head and Raylan fell again to the ground. 

Johnny said, “Maybe I’ve got a better idea.” Raylan could barely hear him, his ears were ringing so loud. He could see out of the corner of his eye, Johnny lean down and speak in Boyd’s ear, “Boyd, I’m so sorry, but you’re already dead, remember? Raylan shot you.”

Boyd took a breath as though he were in terrible pain. Raylan tried to get up again, but Johnny was looking for that and left Boyd’s side to shove him roughly against the wall. He saw stars once more as his head rammed hard against the aluminum and couldn't blink the darkness out of his eyes. 

 

“ _Raylan_ ,” Ava was crying. “Oh shit, baby, _breathe_.”

Raylan blinked. The light hurt his eyes, but he was pretty sure he was breathing. He groaned something unintelligible. 

“Raylan, he’s turning blue. What did Johnny say?” She was kneeling beside Boyd, who was lying prone half on the floor, half on the mattress, his arms laid out, splayed from his sides in the exact same position he’d been that night at Ava’s house. 

“He said, I shot him--Boyd--that Boyd was dead,” Raylan stuttered out, choking on the words. 

He couldn’t believe what he was seeing as he scrambled across the floor and to Boyd’s opposite side. His eyes were wide open, but they seemed not to see anything and he wasn’t breathing, his lips turning a lifeless gray-blue.

“Boyd,” Raylan said urgently, looking into his blank eyes. “Darlin’, you can’t listen to Johnny. He don’t know. W-we ain’t here. And we ain’t in Ava’s dining room and--and I never shot you, Boyd. I never did. We’re walking,” he said, trying to remember just how Boyd had described it. The way he wanted it to be. “We’re walking in the hills. It’s springtime, right? And it’s still early--the service just ended--and there’s dew all through the trees and the undergrowth. It’s cool and nice. And the breeze is blowing up from the stream and the lily of the valley, darlin’. You’ve got to breathe, Boyd. Breathe in that mountain air, _please_.”

Boyd took a breath then, a deep one, ragged and gasping. He blinked rapidly and coughed and breathed again.

Ava gave a little cry of relief. Her hands ran freely across his shoulders and face and through his hair, like she wasn’t sure where it would be best to touch him as he began to breathe normally.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Raylan heaved, sitting back hard on the floor. He got his hand on Boyd’s leg and rubbed at it, as though that was going to get his blood moving faster again so he wouldn’t look so much like a dead body anymore.

His head was aching and the light still hurt his eyes. Blood was pounding in his temples and at the back of his head. “What the--where did Johnny go?”

Ava shook her head. “I don’t know. Called away. The phone was in his hand when he pushed past me. He was swearing and calling for Jimmy. I ran in and found you both on the floor.”

“Jesus,” Raylan breathed.

Ava leaned over Boyd and took his face in her hands. “Look at me,” she said. “You’re not dead, baby. Raylan didn’t shoot you. Tell me you understand that.”

“I understand Raylan didn’t shoot me,” Boyd’s voice cracked out of his mouth like broken teeth. But he smiled and they were all there.

“And you know you’ve got to breathe, baby, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” he said, his smile going soft.

“Okay,” she said and burst into tears. “Now hold me, okay? Just hold onto me for a while.”

 

Later they told him to sleep and he did. He slept so still that both Raylan and Ava couldn’t stop themselves from checking if he was still alive every once in awhile.

They knew they had to get out soon and they tried to make a plan, but Raylan couldn’t concentrate for long, his head hurt so much, and Ava had her eyes and her mind on Boyd, watching the rise and fall of his chest.

He woke in the late morning. 

Ava was off mopping out the bar’s bathroom, as apparently the woman who’d been doing it left in a rush shortly after it became obvious Johnny wasn’t done singling out people to dose with the Breath. 

Raylan thought it was a pretty wise move, but it left Ava with more to do. She was tiring easily, since she’d barely had time to recover from being dosed herself, and it was making things twice as hard now that every time she saw Johnny she couldn’t stop her hands from shaking.

“I ain’t afraid of him,” she insisted to Raylan while Boyd slept. “I’m not. I just--they just go and I can’t stop it.”

Raylan told her it was all right. It was natural. She was traumatized. They all were.

When Boyd woke, he did it slowly, more slowly than Raylan remembered him doing it before. Raylan was reading, but he knew Boyd was waking because his hand twitched and then his back stiffened. But he didn’t stir or shift for a long time after that.

When he did rise to a sitting position, he looked everywhere but at Raylan, carefully, like he’d never laid eyes on the place before. He looked down at the mattress on which he’d been sleeping and caught sight of the scars along his arms. 

The room was warm now that Ava had smuggled them a space heater, since it was into November now and freeing outside. Jimmy had looked the other way, now incredibly dissatisfied with his decision to back Johnny in his coup. So they had left off Boyd’s shirt when they changed his bandages again. Some of the wounds had healed enough they could be left exposed.

He was looking down at them and frowning deeply. He traced a light finger across one of the swirling lines going up his forearm. 

“Boyd,” Raylan finally called softly.

Boyd’s head snapped up, his eyes large and surprised, almost to fear. He shifted, tensing all his muscles, and pushed himself back against the wall.

“Boyd, are you with me?” Raylan asked him carefully. “I need you to say something.”

Raylan half expected him to say only the word, “something.” He thought the dose should have run its course by now, but sometimes it seemed as though there was no telling how long it would last.

Still, Boyd stared at Raylan and did not speak and did not move. So Raylan knew he wasn’t under anymore.

“Okay,” Raylan said then, keeping his voice even and quiet. “That’s fine. Just relax. Everything’s--” Raylan broke off. He didn’t want to finish that sentence. He didn’t mind telling lies when Boyd was on the Breath, but he wouldn’t do it now. He wanted to tell him then that he was safe, but decided that wasn’t necessarily true either. “I’m here, Boyd,” he eventually said. “Take your time.”

He picked up his book again and he looked at the pages, but didn’t understand a word. Out of his peripheral vision, he saw Boyd stare at him longer, a small crease of confusion developing between his brows. After a while, his eyes slowly moved again around the room and then back down to his scars.

He was blinking rapidly, like there was something in his eyes, and every once in awhile, he shook his head, like he need to dislodge something that was no longer in the right place.

Raylan’s book had fallen onto his knee.

He remembered Boyd worrying that Johnny was destroying him. He hadn’t really thought it was truly possible until that moment.

“Okay,” he said, mostly to himself, but Boyd’s head jerked in his direction again, as though even the idea of speech was alien and frightening to him. “How about I read to you, then?”

When Boyd didn’t react, Raylan just flipped back to the first page of the book--a Western some bar patron had just left on the table--and began, “At sunset hour the forest was still, lonely, sweet with tang of fir and spruce, blazing in gold and red and green; and the man who glided on under the great trees seemed to blend with the colors and, disappearing, to have become a part of the wild woodland.”

He had only made it a few pages, to when Dale, the hero, realized that he was listening to the gathering of a group of outlaws, when Ava came in, looking tired. Boyd, who had slowly relaxed while listening to either the words themselves or only the droning sound of Raylan’s voice, startled when she entered and scrambled back, shoving himself not just against the wall, but back into the corner.

“Baby--” Ava cried and then broke off, turning fast to Raylan.

Raylan raised his brows and his hands quickly. “Let’s just, everyone stay calm,” he said evenly. 

“Is he...” She didn’t finish that sentence either.

“He ain’t under. He just...don’t feel like talkin’. Come over here, Ava. We’re reading, all right?”

She looked as though she was about to cry again, but prevented herself from it forcefully. She moved slow and she made herself smile at Boyd as she sat down next to Raylan. “All right,” she murmured and he took her hand.

“As it chanced, Dale lay face down upon the floor of the loft, and right near his eyes there were cracks between the boughs. When the fire blazed up he was fairly well able to see the men below,” he continued and geared up to do the outlaw voices for the dialogue.

Ava hid her mouth behind her hand as he read things like, "Fall's sure a-comin'” and "Boss, I heerd a hoss cornin' up the trail.” But Boyd was listening, he was certain, because he’d curled his knees up into his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He hadn’t yet closed his eyes, but they were drooping a little and he seemed so much more relaxed.

At some point, Ava looked at her watch and said she had to go tend the bar. She gave Raylan a kiss on the cheek and smiled at Boyd again, who eyed her as she left. Raylan kept reading, going on to the chapter about Helen Rayner, a pioneer woman about to get “made off with.” He noticed though, as soon as Raylan said the name “Helen,” Boyd had turned to him, frowning, as though he knew the name meant something to him, but not what.

Raylan looked up from the text and met Boyd’s eyes. They weren’t black anymore, his pupils no longer dilated wide with the Breath. They did seem strange though--there was a lack of intensity within them, a shallowness that had never been there before.

Boyd parted his lips, licked them once, and said, still frowning, but with only a little uncertainty, “Raylan.”

Raylan gave him a slow, sad smile in return. “Boyd,” he said, as though they were greeting each other in the old days.

“Raylan, I didn’t know you,” Boyd admitted, speaking slowly, like he needed to get used to it again. “My head was buzzing and I couldn’t really hear anything--or think--I--”

Raylan wasn’t sure that what he wanted to hear was that it was all right, so he said, "Did you know Ava?"

Boyd shook his head. "No, I-- _Ava_ , Oh God--" He broke off then and swayed, as if dizzy. 

Raylan took a breath. “Boyd, may I come over there?”

Boyd looked at him strangely in response. “Why?” His eyes were wide again and Raylan could see in them an ocean of uncertainty, threatening to overwhelm him.

“Because I want to be near you right now.” Raylan hadn’t wanted anything so much in a really long time. He needed to touch Boyd, to ground himself in the idea that Boyd was still here with him, still talking and thinking, and if he was doing that, the rest of him, his memories, his self, could be saved.

“I don’t--” Boyd began, but cut himself off quickly when Jimmy burst through the door, looking scared and breathing heavily.

Raylan glared at him. “What?”

Jimmy looked between them, then said to Raylan, “Wynn Duffy is here.” He glanced over at Boyd who was looking at him like a stranger. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Boyd blinked at him and then turned slightly away. “I think I’m going to be ill,” he murmured.

Raylan stood quickly and faced Jimmy directly. “You had better let me go out there, son, or we’re going to have a problem.”

“Why do you think I came in here to fucking tell you, asshole?” Jimmy asked, rolling his eyes. “I’m so fucking done with this shit. Go do what you need to do and get the hell out of Harlan or get yourselves shot. I don’t give a damn.”

Raylan nodded at him. “Fuck you too, Jimmy.” He turned and took the few steps he needed to cross the room. He bent low and Boyd looked up at him, surprised by his soft, nearly chaste, kiss. “I’m gonna go fix this,” Raylan told him softly. “Come watch if you want. But if you don’t think you can walk, just stay here. I’m coming back for you.”

Boyd frowned again. “Why wouldn’t I be able to walk?” His eyes were on Raylan’s mouth, like he was still preoccupied with the kiss.

Raylan searched his eyes again, a sinking feeling of dread and despair settling inside of him. “I’m gonna come back for you,” he said and turned away.

“You don’t happen to have a gun for me, do you?” Raylan asked Jimmy as he walked out of the shed, wrapping his arms around himself to protect from the cold wind blowing as he made his way over to the back door of the bar.

“No, I do not,” Jimmy said, like even the suggestion was some kind of insult to his intelligence. “Man, I ain’t even going near there right now.” He veered off and made a break for his truck. “Good Luck, or whatever.”

“Christ,” Raylan murmured and pulled the door open.

He strode right through the back and into the bar, passing Ava behind it without a glance. He spared little more for Johnny who was sitting, somewhat precariously, on a barstool, his hands halfway in the air, talking about the shit Wynn had given him, how he’d never said in what way he was or wasn’t supposed to use it.

He shut his mouth fast when Raylan appeared. Duffy was standing maybe three feet away from him, just in the center of the room. His goons, including Mike, his faithful bodyguard, were positioned around him, all holding firearms straight at Johnny. As soon as Raylan entered, however, about half of them seemed confused as to who they should be threatening.

Raylan did not raise his hands, or his voice, he only looked at Duffy and said, “Wynn, I’m gonna need you to call Sammy Tonin for me. Right now.”

Duffy stared at him for a moment, then snapped his attention back to Johnny. “ _This_ is _under control_?” he growled. He turned again to Raylan and took a step in his direction. He tilted his head. “And why the fuck would I do that?”

Raylan let a crooked smile play on his lips. “You may remember some time back I did something for Sammy--well, at the time, it was mostly for me--but it sure as hell helped Sammy out of a shitty situation. Now, Wynn, do you really want him to find out I was asking for him--just in order to settle the debt, you see--and you _didn’t_ make the call?”

“Shit,” Duffy spit and pulled out his phone. It rang, just once so far as Raylan could tell, and Duffy spoke quietly into the receiver, “Yeah, it’s me. I need him on the line now. Listen, tell him some decisions were made without my knowledge and I was going to sort it, but circumstances--fuck, just tell him it’s concerning Raylan Givens--oh, Jesus Christ.” 

His eyes were suddenly drawn past Raylan and to the doorway behind him, where Boyd had just come through. He looked so much worse there in the neon light, with those pink and white scars crawling across his pallid skin, his eyes sunken, and his hair shorn, skinny and frail and still fearful. 

Ava came around the bar, as slow as it seemed that she could, looking anxious and holding out her hands to him. It looked for a moment like he might shy away from her, but he stood very still as her fingers wrapped around his hand, and her other hand gripped his arm loosely. “Come sit down, baby,” she murmured. Boyd’s eyes were on Raylan and he didn’t move.

Wynn turned again to Johnny, hold music hilariously blaring out of his phone. “You think he _hasn’t_ outlived his usefulness? What in God’s name were you saving him for you sick fuck? And Givens should have been taken care of weeks ago. You had _Federal Agents_ out here because of him. Jesus--” the hold music switched off and Duffy’s eyes snapped to the ground, “No, no, hello, Mr. Tonin, I’m sorry to--yes, this is about Raylan Givens. Uh, yes, he’s right here with me now. I know I said I didn’t know his whereabouts I--” He looked up at Raylan again, a combination of loathing and fear meeting in his expression. “Of course, sir.” Duffy held the phone out to Raylan, “He wants to talk to you.”

Raylan took it graciously and said, “Hello, Mr. Tonin.”

“Raylan,” Sammy’s voice coming over the line was surreally a welcome sound. Raylan put the phone on speaker and held it out in front of him. He wanted everyone to hear this conversation. “I heard some things about what’s happened to you recently and I want you to know, that order would never have come from me.”

“I know that,” Raylan said, keeping his eyes on Duffy, who was glaring daggers at Johnny. “I called to request safe passage for myself and Boyd and Ava Crowder to Detroit--or a place of your choosing--where we can negotiate a little.”

“Negotiate what exactly?” Sammy wasn’t so thick as this, Raylan knew. He just wanted them on the same page. 

Raylan closed his eyes. His life these days seemed to be one resignation after another. “The debt that you owe me and the larger debt I’m about to owe you.”

“An airport for an airport, Raylan,” Sammy said, his tone going hard. “We’ll talk about the rest when I see you. Now, hand it back over to Wynn.”

Raylan did and they were on a plane in a half an hour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Western Raylan reads is _The Man of the Forest_ by Zane Grey.


	8. Epilogue

There is a pounding coming from outside the hangar at the Detroit airport, relentless and ringing high, metallic and heavy, in the back of her senses. 

Ava listens to Raylan sell their lives for their safety and she thinks the noise gets louder when Raylan shakes the man’s hand. 

He looks grave, but when he turns, he smiles softly at Boyd, who still stares at them like they’re strangers.

It’s the sound of prison bars, she knows. But she smiles at Boyd too. And she takes his hand when they cross the tarmac to the car that will take them to their new home.

At least in this cage, she can hold onto the things she loves.

 

The house is furnished already. It’s nice, very white and very clean, with pretty splashes of fall colors in the furniture.

There are shadows on the walls from where pictures have been taken down. There are some clothes in the closets and junk in the garage. Someone left in a hurry.

Ava comes in from the kitchen as Raylan tells Boyd, “We’re going to stay here now. We’re not going back there.”

Boyd looks at him, frowning only slightly, as if through a fog. “Back where?” 

Raylan swallows something hard as Ava’s breath catches. “It doesn’t matter,” he answers.

 

They decide each of them will pick a bedroom, out of the three in the house, and Boyd can sleep where he likes. They never really talk about it, but the first night, Boyd goes with Ava.

She wonders if it’s just out of habit.

They don’t touch, as he seems skittish, but when they are in the dark, under the covers together, he turns to her and says, “Did you know Raylan kissed me?” 

He speaks in a hushed whisper, like he’s giving away a secret. 

Ava had guessed. She doesn’t mind at all. He can have what he wants. She won’t take anything else from him.

So she smiles at him and nods before she asks, “When?”

Boyd looks less certain and hesitates before he replies, “I don’t know. But it feels like he did.”

Ava frowns. “What do you mean?”

Boyd’s eyes are wide. “On my mouth.” He puts his fingers there. “And here.” He draws them down to his chest. “It feels for him, like it does for you.”

“Do you want him to do it again?” she asks him. She lays her palm on his cheek and he leans into her touch, so she moves closer. “It’s okay if you do.”

“You don’t mind?”

Ava is so glad that when he does remember her, he knows who she is to him. If he’d forgotten that, she doesn’t know how she could stand it--any of it.

She shakes her head. “No, baby. You do what you feel, okay?”

He smiles at her and presses close. “All right.”

 

Everyone plays a part, Mr. Tonin says. Raylan starts first. 

He wears a dark suit now, black or charcoal gray. He drives a black Chrysler, carries more than one gun and looks mean, not for a living, but for his life.

He comes home with blood on him some days. But, at least, he does come home to Ava and Boyd.

Ava can tell Raylan is tired and that he worries about them, about the things he has to do, about the things they’re going to ask Ava and Boyd to do.

She sees him watching Boyd, who cooks for them when his head isn’t hurting so bad he just wants to sleep, and returning his shy glances with soft smiles. Their silent courtship dance would be cute, if it wasn’t already so sad.

It’s weeks that Boyd sleeps in Ava’s bed, until one night when she’s fallen asleep in the armchair, an empty bourbon glass clutched in her hand, that’s she’s roused by soft laughter and softer music coming from the radio.

One of the public stations plays bluegrass on Sunday nights--Lord knows why in Detroit--and Boyd has Raylan’s hands in his and is pulling him into the clogging steps.

“I ain’t no good at that,” Raylan murmurs, shaking his head.

“So you say,” Boyd answers. He pulls him closer.

Their lips meet, just as soft as their voices were. Boyd sighs like he’s just drank a big glass of water.

“You been waitin’ a while?” Raylan asks. His hand is around the back of Boyd’s neck.

“I-I wasn’t sure.”

“Are you sure now?”

“Uh huh.” 

Raylan laughs, pleased. “You take your time, Boyd. We’re here now. We’re safe. We got all the time we need.”

Ava doesn’t stir until they leave the room. Boyd even drapes a blanket over her and kisses her forehead but she pretends to be asleep. 

 

“They want him,” Raylan says when he comes home soon after. “They told me to bring him tomorrow.”

Ava goes cold. “What for?”

“Bank heist. It’s tricky. Picker remembers him. Thinks he can crack it.”

“They want him to go in?”

Raylan shakes his head and her nerves ease, but not by much. “They want him to plan it.”

Boyd’s eyes are grave as he enters the room. “Who are you talking about?”

They’ve told him before, when he asked. But he’s forgotten. So they tell him again. 

They were somewhere bad, where Boyd was hurt--he knows this, he nods--they got out. But now they owe somebody--Mr. Tonin. Raylan nods.

“A man who works for him, Mr. Picker. You’ve met him before.” He doesn’t ask if Boyd remembers. They can tell from his face that he doesn’t. “He remembers you. He thinks you can help him with a problem he has.”

Boyd’s eyes are wide. “Can I?”

Raylan doesn’t sugar-coat it. “Boyd, we really hope so. It will be bad for us if you can’t.”

Raylan tells him not to speak. To look at the plans and see what he thinks. To be polite and to be helpful.

Raylan tells her when they come back, he doesn’t do any of that.

He says, it’s like he walked in there and his hackles rose, and he was another creature entirely.

He was all sharp-eyed and straight-backed. He was sneering at the men in the club as they walked into the back. He didn’t speak, but his expression spoke volumes.

Raylan says, Picker asked him if Boyd had a problem. Before Raylan could answer, Boyd said he heard Picker had one.

Raylan says, he gave Boyd a hard glare and he went quiet after that, though his eyes were still so sharp and hard. He said something to Picker, to smooth it over. Someone else at the table muttered about the Breath. Raylan says Boyd looked right at him and cocked his head like he hadn’t quite heard, or understood and the man looked away fast.

Boyd looked at their plans, Raylan says he spoke direct, sharp like his eyes, and was liberal with insults as to the intelligence and maturity of the person who drafted the originals. He drew his own plans on whatever he pleased and no one stopped him or said a word to contradict.

It was like he took over the room.

When they left, he says, no one said thank you, either.

Boyd’s hands are shaking when they come home. He walks right into Ava’s arms and he’s sleeping between them as Raylan tells her about it.

They ask him back every once in a while and it goes down the same as the first time. Raylan says, they take his shit and they say nothing. They listen to what he says and everything goes fine, and Raylan ignores the whispers behind their backs.

He says they call Boyd _Devil’s Spawn_ and say _that shit will fuck you up_. 

 

Months later, Picker sends her a red dress to wear with a time and place to be. Raylan says he should have known they’d bring her in too. His eyes are wary and she can’t help but think the worst.

Mr Tonin said, everyone plays a part.

She can't put on her make-up, she's crying so hard, and Raylan is leaning against the wall in the corner, watching her curl her hair with a hard-lined frown because she won't let him help her at all.

Boyd comes in then and he watches her carefully, puzzled by her tears. She freezes when she sees him, taking heavy, hitching breaths, unable to stop.

He touches her face, drawing his thumb through her tears. "Why are you crying?" he asks softly. "You look so pretty."

She flees into the bathroom, wracked with guilt for leaving Raylan to try and explain it again to him.

They can't say no. They have nowhere else to go.

That night, they only ask Ava to spot, to line up a hit. She walks a man up to a hotel room and a sniper shoots him between the eyes. She keeps her face away from the security cameras and she doesn't touch anything and everyone gets away clean.

She comes home and Raylan holds her as Boyd sleeps next to them. He stirs as they talk softly and then looks at them both in surprise. They’ve never slept all in the same room before. 

"Did you have a nice time?" he asks her and she can’t stop herself from bursting into tears again. 

All day he’s been so foggy, nothing stays in his head for long. He holds her though and Raylan rubs circles across her back.

 

The next day is better. 

Tonin sends them a car and a picnic basket and they sit by the lake in the afternoon. They eat cold fried chicken and cold potato salad and watermelon. Ava’s put on a new white dress with blue flowers on it and she lays her head back for the wind to comb through her hair. Raylan takes his hat off.

Boyd looks at them both for a long time and says, "Thank you."

They smile at him. Ava shades her hand over her eyes from the sun as it sets behind his head.

“You’ve both sacrificed so much for me,” he says.

“Baby, you sacrificed quite a bit for us, too,” she replies. “Neither of us would be here if not for you.”

Boyd frowns. “I-I don’t--” he breaks off. He usually doesn’t say anything when he doesn’t remember.

The sun has gone down behind his shoulders and Ava drops her hand. Raylan covers it with his own. “That’s fine,” Raylan says. “We remember.” Ava lets her head fall to his shoulder.

He smiles at them tentatively. “You two look good together.”

Raylan grins. “You know, I always thought that,” he says, tightening his fingers around hers. 

Boyd cocks his head. Sometimes it takes him a while now, for jokes. “When?”

Ava shakes her head and swats Raylan on the arm, sliding forward and closer to Boyd. “A lifetime ago, baby.”

He blinks and smirks at her, just like he used to, and she wonders if he just then remembered, but he doesn’t say so. He leans forward and kisses her slow and sweet, but then sends her gently back into Raylan’s arms.

“You look so pretty,” he says, eyes shining. “I wish I had a camera.”

“This your blessing?” Raylan asks with a funny smile on his face.

“Fuck you, Raylan,” Boyd replies.

 

When they go home that night, and every night after, they stay together in one room, in one bed, limbs all a tangle and Ava’s hair in everyone’s mouths. Raylan wear his dark suit and drives his car and carries his gun. Boyd gives dark looks and barks orders that everyone listens too.

And Ava watches and waits and she holds them together, like they hold onto her and each other.


End file.
